The team negotiating on behalf of the doctors is not fully mandated to hold negotiations with the government and make full decisions on its own.
This has been said by the Ministry of Health officials who were involved in a series of meetings held yesterday in an attempt to end the strike that has left public hospitals across the country paralyzed.
According to Health cabinet secretary Cleopa Mailu, the doctors team yesterday had agreed on a fresh proposal tabled by the government only to reject it afterwards.
Apparently, during yesterday’s meeting, the government had conceded to the demands of the doctors to give them better allowances and promotion of doctors to one job group higher where they currently are.
This was preceded by a 6am meeting between Dr Mailu and two representatives of the doctors union—its chairperson and its Secretary General—in Afya House where the doctors are said to have given two conditions.
“They said they accepted the allowances given in Mombasa [under President Uhuru Kenyatta’s 40 per cent offer that would see a medical intern take home a minimum of Sh196,989 and the highest earning doctors receiving Sh542, 954 per month] and should be retained from January 1, 2017,” said Dr. Mailu.
The other request was that the government also considered promoting the rest of the doctor’s a job group higher from January 1, 2017. That is, if a doctor was on job group P they would move to Q.
“This afternoon (Tuesday) we made that offer, we conceded and agreed on assumption that they will agree. They were called for a meeting later in the day, since around 3.30pm but to our surprise, the doctors negated on that and actually walked out of the discussions in a huff,” he said.
The doctors nonetheless said that they walked out of the meeting because the government had given them a new collective bargaining agreement which was not part of the 2013 CBA that they want implemented.
