How medics got into a defective accord with government

FROM LEFT: Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich, Health Cabinet Secretary Dr Cleopa Mailu and other Health Ministry officials at a press conference over the doctors’ strike last Friday. [PHOTO: JENIPHER WACHIE/STANDARD]

An unholy alliance between the doctors’ union and the Jubilee government in 2013 has returned to haunt the health sector. The State's contentious Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU) was fatally flawed from the start.

Aspects of the CBA are also shrouded in mystery. It is not clear why it was signed by an officer who had already left government. If the CBA was not signed out of mischief, then it would seem to have been a factor of an overzealous novice government, eager to ingratiate itself with an agitated medical fraternity and with the public, too.