Doctors have threatened to withdraw their services if the demands of their 2017-21 CBA remain unmet.
The held a two-day Special Delegates Conference in Nakuru county which brought together more than 500 doctors drawn from all over the country.
Key on the agenda was to discuss among other issues the 2017-21 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) and general members welfare.
In a statement on Saturday the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists’ Union decried stalled implementation of the agreement by the Ministry of Health, the county governments and parastatals in the health sector.
Some of their grievances include salary adjustments, creation of call rooms, posting of medical interns, employment of jobless graduates, provision of working tools and constant consultations that would create industrial harmony.
“We are going to embark on an intense month period of engagements with all stakeholders as a reminder that the CBA is alive while negotiating a new cycle of CBA 2021-2025,” KMPDU SG Dr Davji Atellah said.
“You can be sure that those engagements include all options to unions including an industrial action. Let the country be on notice."
Atellah said as a union, they are cognisant that health is a devolved function and demanded budgetary allocations by county governments be reviewed and increased.
He said this will help address majority of issues that cause a lot of industrial disharmony between the health workforce and employers across the 47 counties.
The union has further raised concern over what it has termed as failure to appoint a medical doctor at the helm of the ministry leadership.
Atellah noted that despite 250 doctors having applied for the position of Principal Secretary and more than 47 doctors shortlisted and interviewed not a single doctor, dentist or pharmacist made it to the appointments.
“We cannot effectively contribute while we are excluded,” Atellah said.
