Kenyan doctors defy order to return to work

Kenya’s state sector doctors, who have been on strike for three months, said yesterday that they would not resume work after a government order the day before, and would wait for the conclusion of court-supervised resolution of the dispute.“While all doctors have been ready to resume duty, doing so under threats, intimidation and show of disrespect is tantamount to career suicide,” the doctor’s union, KMPDU, said on Twitter.Yesterday the Kenyan authorities said they would hire foreign doctors to get public hospitals running again.The government has threatened repeatedly to fire striking doctors and has even gone so far as to jail union officials in a bid to end the country’s longest-ever medical strike.Peter Munya, the chairman of the council of governors, said that the government was “working on contingent measures to return the health sector to where it was by looking for services wherever they are available in the continent or outside the continent”.“We decided that doctors who have failed to resume work should consider themselves sacked,” he added.On Tuesday a furious President Uhuru Kenyatta lambasted the doctors who have been striking for better pay and working conditions, accusing them of “blackmail”.“We will not succumb to threats and intimidation. Do these doctors think we are that stupid? We have offered you better salaries than those in private hospitals!” he said at a joint press conference with Munya.The doctors downed their tools in December demanding authorities implement a deal agreed in 2013 to give them a 150% to 180% pay rise.The Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) agreed between the government and the doctors’ unions in 2013 promises to triple salaries and improve often dire conditions in public hospitals – which striking doctors point to when accused of being greedy.The government said the document was still being fine-tuned but doctors argue it is a legal deal which they want implemented immediately.A Kenyan court which declared the strike illegal appointed church leaders to mediate after several other mediators failed.Months of negotiations between the two sides have not borne fruit, however, and on Tuesday the government said it had terminated those talks after accusing the union of inflexibility in negotiations and rejecting a 50% pay hike offer.Doctors were also ordered to resume work.In a series of tweets, KMPDU said its members would only return to duty after signing an agreement with the government “as was guided by the court of appeal under the mediation of religious leaders”.The latest move by the union threatens to drag on a stand-off that is testing the government and Kenyatta’s re-election bid in polls due in August.The court of appeal ordered the parties to appear in court on Monday to report on the progress of the talks.Poor salaries and working conditions – such as a lack of vital drugs and equipment – have pushed Kenyan doctors to flee the public sector or go to other countries where there are better opportunities.KMPDU says the country has one doctor to 17,000 patients, while the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends one to 1,000.University lecturers also went on strike in January, a double blow to Kenyatta’s government just five months before general elections.A series of corruption scandals – including in the health ministry – are fuelling the discontent, as is anger towards lawmakers who are among the best paid in the world and have voted themselves new benefits while claiming to be unable to meet doctors’ and lecturers’ demands.