Pray you don’t become unwell around the Christmas period because chances are that there won’t be any doctor to attend to you should you seek medcal attention.
The doctors union, KMPDU, has issued a 21-day strike notice with secretary general Davji Atellah saying “the nationwide doctors strike is to commence on 22nd December, 2024 at 23:59:59.”
In a statement on his X feed, Atellah said the strike has been called to push the government to fulfill its promises contained in the Return-to-Work Formula (RTWF), including paying intern doctors and respect of the 2017 CBA.
The last time the doctors went on strike, they paralysed operations across all public health facilities for 56 days, causing untold suffering to patients.
The medics ended the job boycott on May 8 after days on marathon negotiations midwifed by the Labour Realtions Court, the Ministry of Labour and Head of Public Service, Felix Kosgey, via a whole-government approach.
Speaking during a press conference on November 27, the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists (KMPDU) Secretary General Davji Atellah said the government has had seven months to implement the agreed salary scales as agreed in the RTWF but had failed to do so.
He said that the fresh strike will be full drawn and will stretch as far as they can until all their demands are met.
Atellah ruled out any form of dialogue this time around.
“We are saying this without any fear of contradiction that when we call strike nobody should come to us and sell to us the aspect of goodwill or the aspect of negotiation because seven months is far too long for somebody to keep on making promises,” he said.
“It will be time to implement the agreements that were signed and adopted as court orders.”
During the press confernce, Atellah said the strike would officially be declared on November 30, at which time he said they would decalre paralysis across health facilities beginning December 1.
“We will go on strike in the month of December because the government does not care about Kenyans. They are very much caring about deductions and taxes but not about service delivery.”
Atellah said the announcement would be made during their national delegates conference at the Safari Park hotel, Nairobi, with sole agenda to issue a national strike.
“We know it will be a sad situation that time but the government is entirely responsible because they are failing to honour agreements and they are failing to honour court orders,” Atellah said.
The medics said as a result of government’s failure to pay intern doctors, two had so far this year resorted to suicide while four others were rescued and taken to hospital while on the brink of unaliving themselves.
The first to die was Dr Desiree Moraa on September 24. She was stationed at Gatundu Level 5 Hospital.
The second was a male pharmacist who died on November 26. He was working at the Thika Level 5 Hospital.
Financial problems was cited as the key motivator in both cases.
“We are saddened by the two lives that we have lost; these are children of persons, these are persons that are dedicated to serve Kenyans. And because of the doing of the government, they have decided erratically to change what has existed for the last seven years without any goodwill or good intention to solve it,” Atellah said.
