Striking doctors have been warned not to disrupt services at private and mission hospitals, as the death toll from the ongoing boycott reached 25.
Meantime, on Friday chairman of the Council of Governors Peter Munya told reporters that on Tuesday counties will begin fresh negotiations with doctors. He said it was wrong for the state to sign a CBA in 2013 because health is a devolved function.
On Thursday doctors in private and mission hospitals said they will stop working and join the strike on Tuesday. The doctors’ union urged them to join. But the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board and church leaders said the call to interfere with private facilities is illegal. They warned “the blood of dying Kenyans would be on their hands.”
Board chairman Dr George Magoha said they would deal sternly with any medic who tries to interfere with running of private and mission hospitals.
“The board notes that the call for the stoppage of services in private health institutions not only interferes with the management and operations of private entities, but also interferes with the constitutional rights of the public to access healthcare services as espoused under Article 43 ( 1 ) (a) and also the right to access emergency medical services as stipulated in Article 43( 2 ),” he said.
The strike enters its sixth day Saturday. The doctors are demanding a 300 per cent salary increase, which will give an undergraduate intern a monthly salary of Sh325,000, rising to Sh400,000 when he or she graduates.
This would make Kenyan doctors the best paid in Africa. Only less than three per cent of all salaried Kenyan workers earn more than Sh100,000, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics 2015 report.
“The government should spare no effort to ensure that anyone who attempts to interfere with the operations of private health institutions is dealt with decisively and in accordance with the law,” Magoha said.