Kenya Doctors on Strike from today

KiN Newsroom
The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) kicked off a nationwide strike starting today, Thursday 13th. September 2012. Reports from KMPDU have it that patients will not be attended to at the Kenyatta National Hospital and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, Eldoret. The strike will affect central, north rift and other regions in the country.

Medical Services assistant minister Kazungu Kambi appealed to doctors, pharmacists and dentists to ignore the strike claiming the government had met all the conditions that the union wanted fulfilled before ending the doctors’ strike in December 2011.

“However, the current demand by the union that privately-sponsored trainee doctors known as registrars’ at the Kenyatta National and Moi Referral Hospitals be paid some allowances cannot be met since they are not in the Government’s payroll,” Mr Kambi said in Parliament.

KMPDU Secretary General Onyino Were said doctors had been arm twisted to strike because the government had violated the return-to work-formula that was adopted last December to end the doctors’ strike.

“And it is worth noting that senior government officials, including the two health ministers, seek medical services outside the country; a luxury that most Kenyans cannot afford,” he argued accusing the government of being indifferent to the plight of ordinary citizens.