Striking Kenyan doctors hold demonstration in Nairobi, deadlocked

Kenyan doctors staged new demonstrations on Tuesday to demand better wages and working conditions.

Doctors are demanding the government commit to honoring the collective bargaining agreement signed in 2017, but President William Ruto says the state does not have the money to pay doctors and has asked them to return to work.

Thousands of striking doctors and medical interns chanted “Doctors, united, will never be defeated” as they protested outside Kenya’s parliament.

Doctors, led by officials from Kenya’s leading healthcare professionals union, want the government to abide by the agreement.

“The government has failed to implement key components of this collective bargaining agreement and, instead, they have begun to blatantly violate it,” said Davji Atellah, secretary-general of the Kenya Federation of Physicians, Pharmacists and Dentists.

“Despite inflation, despite challenges [and] Atla said changes for all other civil servants, civil servants, doctors and other health workers were still not considered. “In contrast, we found that newly assigned interns received a 91% reduction in salary.”

President William Ruto has asked doctors to call off their strike and return to work, saying the government is struggling with a huge wage bill and cannot afford to review their salaries.

“I tell our friends, doctors, we care about them. We value the service they provide to our country. But we have to live within our means,” Ruto said.

Opposition lawmakers who joined the doctors’ strike on Tuesday accused the president of using the wage bill as an excuse to refuse to pay doctors their due wages amid excessive government spending.

“Doctors could not be paid yesterday, and they cannot be paid tomorrow, but they must be paid today,” said Paul Onjili, a.k.a. “Babu Owino”, an opposition member of parliament. “Ruto took out the loan , and Ruto is levying taxes. Those taxes have to be used to pay the fees of these doctors. Ruto is indirectly responsible for all the deaths that happen in hospitals, all the deaths that happen in this country, because he refuses to pay doctors.”

Another opposition member, Otiande Amolo, said the strike had support.

“We want to assure you that we stand with you and we support your constitutional right to peaceful demonstrations. No one has the right to ban peaceful demonstrations by doctors,” Amolo said.

Irene Kenyatta, a final year medical student at the University of Nairobi, was one of those who took part in the demonstration along with doctors.

“I’m fighting for my future. I went to school to have a bright future. “It can’t be the moment I’m about to finish school that you tell me that I can’t have a bright future after all,” she said. “I’ve invested a lot. If I want a bright future, I have to get a bright future, even if it means taking to the streets to fight for my rights. “

The 2017 Kenyan doctors’ strike lasted for 100 days, making it the longest in the country’s history.

Enforcement of the collective bargaining agreement that ended the strike is the cause of the current strike, which is now in its fourth week.