Dialogue only way to ease human suffering as medics strike

Doctors demonstrate in the streets of Nairobi in December 5, 2016. [PHOTO: ELVIS OGINA]

Kenyans have lost count of the days medical personnel have been on strike this year. Nonetheless, the strikes have been devastating on the poor in society. There is no quality medical care to speak of in public hospitals following the advent of devolution when medical services were devolved to counties and promptly met resistance.

Doctors and nurses find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place as a lack of consensus on how medical services should be handled between the national and county governments bites.

While county governments say they are equal to the task, doctors dispute. Matters are not helped when medical personnel demand better pay and an enabling working environment. It gets worse when the two tiers of government offer no solution.

About 5,000 doctors across the country began a nationwide strike yesterday after the expiry of a 21-day notice of their intention to down tools. More than 2,700 public hospitals are affected.

Doctors are demanding a 300 per cent pay rise in line with a Comprehensive Bargaining Agreement signed in 2013. Some of their concerns were addressed in recent recommendations by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, but doctors have stayed their course.

Government has shown a lack of commitment to resolve the impasse by first, using strong arm tactics where doctors have followed the law in calling for the strike and secondly by burying its head in the sand. It speaks volumes that in the 21 days period doctors gave to the government to put a counter offer on the table, no effort was made to reach out to them until the strike began.

But even as doctors demand better pay, they should not lose sight of the Hippocratic Oath that they signed. The strike will consign many to early deaths as most Kenyans are too poor to afford treatment in private medical facilities.