Doctors have once again threatened to go on strike over unpaid salaries in several counties in Kenya. The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KPMDU) has warned that unless those salaries are released in the next seven days, they will call out their members on strike. The affected counties cited are Embu, Garissa, Taita Taveta, Murang’a, Kisii and Meru.

Strikes have become the norm in the medical profession. This is because doctors have finally determined that the Government, both at the national and county levels, are seemingly not taking their welfare seriously.

Indeed, in March 2022, KPMDU was forced to issue another strike notice to compel the Ministry of Health to pay interns who had gone without salaries for five months. Incredible!. During the Covid pandemic, doctors threatened to go on strike because their safety was not being addressed. They stated that their concerns over safety, health insurance, and adequate staffing to fight the pandemic were not being addressed. 

Indeed, a large number of doctors died from contracting Covid. In some cases, it was very tragic that some of the medics had to foot their own hospital bills. The doctors have also decried the failure of the Government to employ 7,000 doctors to boost the delivery of healthcare services to Kenyans.

Health was one of the functions that was devolved, to be dealt with by the county governments. This has, however, been disastrous. It has been one crisis after another across the country. It looks like there is no end in sight.

Many governors, unwilling to do the heavy lifting required to sort out the challenges facing doctors, simply sack them when they go on strike. When this happens, it leaves residents of those counties without medical services. Kenyans have really suffered as a consequence. Indeed, as two-term governors end their terms, they want billions of shillings in exit payouts, even those governors where doctors’ salaries have been delayed.  Talk of misplaced priorities. Doctors have become very frustrated.  It is now clear that the welfare function of doctors should never have been devolved to counties.

Teachers got it right. The resisted attempts to move the employment function to the counties, and stuck with the Teachers Service Commission.  Teachers have remained with a central body responsible for all matters pertaining to their employment. They certainly have had much better outcomes, and responses to their issues have been cohesive and standard.  This has played a critical role in stability of their employment.

Doctors are as critical a national resource as teachers, probably even more so. They are spread countrywide. They offer a valuable public service.  The Government needs to plan their employment and deployment adequately to ensure Kenyans have proper health. This cannot be left to a disjointed mechanism as the current one prevailing, where every county makes its own decisions on how to handle welfare matters of doctors.

The Government needs to go back to the drawing board. All parties involved must work together to establish a national commission that will be in charge of employment and welfare matters of doctors.  This commission should be styled along the lines of the TSC.

This matter needs to be handled as one of the very first priorities of the next government coming into office in less than a month’s time.

Indeed, the free healthcare that the two main competing coalitions have promised will remain a pipe-dream, if the human resources in health are not streamlined.

The mandate of this commission must encompass all healthcare workers, including nurses and other healthcare professionals, to ensure that the sector is stabilised.

Every year, this Commission would be negotiating with the Government to get a budget allocation to employ more doctors. Just as happens with the TSC and teachers. This situation must not be allowed to fester any longer. The Government must bite the bullet and initiate the establishment of the Commission.