African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

Header Banner

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
KenyaPolitics

Why Kenya has been unable to end the two-month long doctors’ strike

By Moses Masika
February 9, 2017
2558
0
Share:

It’s not just about pay.

Since doctors went on strike, millions of Kenyans have been unable to access care in public hospitals. Credit: CitizenTV.

On 5 December 2016, doctors in public health facilities in Kenya went on strike, setting off one of the longest and messiest industrial disputes by health workers in the country. The Conversation Africa’s Health Editor Joy Wanja Muraya asked Moses Masika to analyse the current impasse that’s paralysed public hospitals countrywide.

What is the cause of the stalemate? How can the standoff be resolved?

Today marks 65 days of a standoff between government and doctors that’s deprived many Kenyans the inalienable right to quality health care and exposing many to extreme physical injuries and financial strain.

When doctors in Kenya began the strike two months ago they spelt out their demands clearly: they wanted a collective bargaining agreement signed in June 2013 to be implemented.

The government has chosen the wrong approach to end the strike. It’s attempted to coerce doctors to resume work by withholding salaries, issuing sacking letters and threatening to import foreign doctors from countries such as Cuba and India.

Union leaders have also been threatened with jail sentences for contempt of court.

These coercive machinations are intended to force doctors back to work. Instead they have strengthened their resolve. After so much sacrifice they feel there’s nothing more to lose.

The doctors’ resolve has also been strengthened by the fact that the government has refused to make any concessions, sticking to the same deal that the doctors’ union turned down in the first week of the strike.

What will get the doctors back to work?

The answer lies in implementing the 2013 collective bargaining agreement.

It covers, among other things, fair working hours, improving work environments and equipment, training, research and remuneration.

Remuneration has been the most contentious. So far the government has offered an extra allowance but no basic salary increase. For any deal to stand a chance of ending the stalemate it needs to address all the issues, not just the addition of a solitary allowance.

The habit of using technicalities and bureaucratic red tape to frustrate the negotiations also needs to stop. And all stakeholders should be ready to come up with solutions rather than erecting roadblocks along the road to a deal.

Ultimately, the government needs to place the interests of the public first. It’s required to provide quality health care to all its citizens. Instead it is disregarding the needs of the majority of Kenyans who cannot afford private health care.

What effect has the strike had over the last two months?

Millions of Kenyans have been unable to access care in public hospitals.

National data shows that the number of outpatient visits in December 2016 was about half of the average in the previous 6 months.

In addition, the number of inpatients per month has reduced to less than a third compared to previous months. This shows that millions of patients have not been able to access care in public facilities.

The most perturbing effect is that many patients have died or suffered disability because they could not access care. On top of this, many people have been forced to seek health care services from private hospitals, incurring catastrophic financial liability.

The strike has also led to delays in training schedules. University lecturers in all public medical schools across the country have been forced to stop teaching until teaching hospitals resume work. It’s impossible to teach medicine without patients in the hospitals.

This is likely to delay the release of new doctors who are supposed to graduate from medical schools this year, exacerbating the shortage of doctors across the country.

The strike has also placed heavy workloads on private and faith based health facilities which have had to contend with higher number of patients. This has stretched existing facilities and human resources, potentially reducing the quality of care.

Ethically, should doctors and nurses go on strike?

Doctors are bound by the Hippocratic oath not to harm patients under their care. That’s why, for instance, those who were performing surgery when the strike started didn’t abandon their patients but completed the operations first.

Secondly, the oath places special obligations on doctors towards their fellow human beings – whether they are ill or not – and charges them to take all the necessary measures to benefit the sick.

In the current strike, doctors have clearly outlined the benefits of their demands to the general public. If the government meets its obligations, there will be more doctors in public service and they will be better equipped, trained and motivated.

Therefore the burden of abandoning patients is not to be borne by the doctors: the government bears the responsibility to provide health care to the people. After all Kenyans pay their taxes to the government, not to the doctors, and should expect the government to provide essential services in return.

[#LipaKamaTender: How Kenya’s striking medical workers took control of the narrative]

What needs to be done after the strike, to restore confidence in public health facilities?

Resolving the current strike positively would alleviate two major problems that bedevil Kenya’s public health facilities – the shortage of doctors and insufficient equipment.

That notwithstanding, the government will need to go further and address the problem of health care financing by making it equitable. Currently settling health bills impoverishes many Kenyans.

The National Hospital Insurance Fund has been expanded to cover many health care costs but the country still falls short of universal health coverage.

Kenya also needs to empower public hospitals to take advantage of the fund’s expanded coverage to grow and improve their services.

At the moment a disproportionately large chunk of the National Hospital Insurance Fund goes to private hospitals leaving public hospitals with constrained budgets. Public hospitals provide subsidised services and often fail to receive payment for services rendered.

This means that the hospitals cannot acquire the supplies or equipment they need to offer quality services.

Moses Masika, PhD Candidate, KAVI Institute of Clinical Research, University of Nairobi.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.The Conversation

Previous Article

4 questions the new president must confront in ...

Next Article

The Big Cheese: Why President Farmaajo holds ...

Moses Masika

Leave a reply Cancel reply

  • Politics

    The Millennium Development Goals – What next, Mr Cameron? – By Myles Wickstead

  • Politics

    Naming the Ones We Lost – South Sudan Conflict: 15 Dec 2013 to the present day

  • Politics

    Darfur: New Estimates for Mortality

Subscribe to our newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and never miss a thing!

  • 81664
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Popular articles

  • Dating apps are popular ways in which people in Nigeria find dates.

    “The minority of the minority”: Dating while queer…and with a disability

  • Donated breast milk in a refrigerator at St Francis Hospital Nsambya in Kampala, Uganda. In November, the hospital launched the country’s first breast milk bank. Credit: Patricia Lindrio/GPJ.

    Saving lives and broken hearts with breast milk in Uganda

  • Dr Kanda at the Lwano mobile screening camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Credit: Xavier Vahed-DNDi.

    Africa-led progress on neglected tropical diseases needs boost in Kigali

  • Evangelista Kanohili sits outside her home in Sheema, Uganda, March 15, 2022. Kanohili has been experiencing on-and-off infestations of jiggers, a small parasitic flea that burrows into the skin and can make it too painful to take care of daily tasks. Credit: Apophia Agiresaasi/Global Press Journal.

    Uganda: The tiny flea making it painful for people to walk and work

  • “Too much propaganda”: Zimbabwe’s pirates of the airwaves look to SA

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • en English
    am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
Cleantalk Pixel
By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
en English
am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
African Arguments wants to hear from you!

Take 5 minutes to fill in this short reader survey and you could win three African Arguments books of your choice…as well as our eternal gratitude.