Honour agreement with doctors

Health Principal Secretary Nicholas Muraguri. (Photo: Boniface Okendo/Standard)

Scars inflicted by the just-ended doctors’ strike have not begun to scab, yet a resumption of hostilities appears imminent if doctors make true an unspecified threat following the order by Health Principal Secretary Nicholas Muraguri directing counties not to pay doctors salaries for the time they were not on duty.

Arguably, pay is for work done and doctors have no moral ground to demand remuneration for the three months in which they neglected their patients. However, the resumption of work was based on a return-to-work formula that took into account the pay issue.

That must have been top on the agenda and in signing the agreement, the Government had committed itself. By reneging on this agreement, Dr Muraguri acted in bad faith.

This vindicates earlier claims by doctors, and even Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopa Mailu that Dr Muraguri was an impediment towards an amicable resolution of the doctors’ strike.

If the Cabinet and Principal Secretaries for Health are working at cross purposes, this spells doom for a sector that is chronically ailing. It will do well for Dr Mailu to overturn the directive by Dr Muraguri and allow doctors to work in peace. The buck stops with him.