Doctors across the nation are set to resume work from Thursday after ending their nationwide strike following the signing of a return-to-work agreement with the Ministry of Health and counties on Wednesday.
The Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union Secretary general Davji Atellah however revealed that the matter concerning interns pay had not been definitively resolved despite staging the strike for 56 days
He added that there is a 60-day period during which the posting of medical interns will be suspended until a binding agreement is reached and attributed the absence of agreement on the issue to an ongoing court case in Eldoret, which is pending judgment.
“All the doctor interns: Medical officer interns, Pharmacists interns and Dentists interns will have to wait a little bit longer, we have agreed on 60 days that they will not be posted but we will be having conversations on this issue,” he said.
He assured doctors that the union will always endeavour to protect the rights of workers enshrined in the CBA.
“We had a long meeting today with the National Advisory Council which is the highest decision-making organ and they endorsed that we sign this return-to-work formula today so that it can pave the way for doctors to return to work within 24 hours from now,” he said.
Also present during the signing of the formula were the council of governors and the Cabinet secretary of Health Susan Nakhumicha who noted that the the disagreements between the doctors and governmentt exposed gaps in the health sector and that the ministry is keen to address
The strike’s sticking points included the intern doctors’ pay and working conditions, as well as the implementation of a previously agreed-upon collective bargaining agreement.
This as Kenya Union of Clinical officers are still on strike entering the 40th day Thursday
Some of the demands the clinical officers want to be addressed include the issuance of confirmation letters for permanent and pensionable positions for their staff members.
They also want what they term as ‘systemic flagrant’ by the Public Service Commission (PSC) to be addressed. They argue that human resource manuals by both the Ministry of Health (MOH) and county governments have not been reviewed that hinder the promotion of staff members “since devolution began”.