Doctors have issued new conditions following suspension of an intended industrial strike today after a deal to implement most of their demands was struck on Tuesday evening.

Now they want the agreement on the table to be deposited in courts as a consent order between the national government, counties, semi-autonomous government agencies in the health sector and unions in order to have it fully implemented.

 The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) said yesterday this is for the benefit of Kenyans and the country’s medical workforce.

“Today, we communicate the union’s decision to suspend the intended strike on condition that the engagement we have had over the last two weeks is entered as consent before a court of law,” the union’s secretary general Dr Davji Atellah said during a news conference with journalists.

He emphasised that the move will compel the government to fulfill her commitment within the timelines as it promised on Tuesday at Delta House, the Council of Governors (CoG) headquarters where the agreement was hammered.

Start negotiations

Atellah argued that by depositing the agreement with the Courts of Law, shortcomings that were witnessed in the delay of the implementation of the current CBA, 2017-2021, will be avoided.

 “Ideally, within 90 days of expiry of a CBA, there is going to be a negotiation of a new one. In the current CBA, we had sent out a draft to all the counties and there was a delay to take action.

“But for this particular agreement, we have to take into consideration how we are going to start negotiations of a new CBA that will cover 2021-2025,” he said flanked by other union officials.

He noted that the suspension of the intended strike takes into consideration that the doctors were ready for an industrial action despite the pain it took them to wait for five years for it to be actualised, but that doesn’t mean that they cannot down tools if their demands are not met.

Atellah also expressed the doctors’ commitment for dialogue and patience as the CBA is being implemented in view of the time it has taken the government to come to the table.

“We know that it has been painful for the doctors to have waited for five years for this to be done having been ready for an industrial action, but we as doctors and as a union are also cognizant of the need to have the services rendered, and for the need for Kenyans to have services.

Therefore, it is for that reason that we see that six days are not so long for us to wait,” he added.

Based on that goodwill thus, he said that the move to suspend the strike should not be taken for granted.

“And if not honoured, then if we proceed for the industrial action, it won’t be the doctors, it will be actually the government that contravenes the whole discussion,” he pointed out, at the same time expressing optimism that it will be fully implemented.

In the agreement the both levels of government agreed to post all the medical interns who have been delayed to be posted within the next one week.

“We also undertook to ensure that the doctors that have been frustrated in having their postgraduate fees paid by the counties are released, and to be paid within a month,” Atellah added.

The doctors are pegging their hopes in the new CBA; 2021-2025 for employment of medical workers.

Dr Atellah stated that the new CBA should give county governments an ultimatum in a form of agreement to honour various national reports on the status of the country’s health workforce including the Kenya Health Workforce Report.

Labour gaps

It had been recommended in 2012 that the country should employ a particular number of doctors every year in order to ensure it addresses the existing labour gaps in the health sector.

“If you look at the manifesto of the government of the day, it promised to employ 20, 000 health workers, and if you look at the country as it is, we have a doctor patient ratio of 1:17,000 against the World Health Organisation requirement of 1:1, 000,” he said.

The doctors said this means that even if the country was to employ the about 5, 000 doctors today, it will still need about 20, 000 to 25, 000 to meet the WHO recommendation.

“We, therefore, are in the process of looking into our next CBA that a particular number of doctors employed in the country per year meet the WHO requirements,” he added.

The doctors recalled the pain that the country went through during the 2017 doctors’ 100 days strike and promised this will not happen again.