Kenyan Doctors’s Salary Hike Strike Reaches 52 Days; Hospitals Deserted, Empty

Kenya is undergoing a salary strike by doctors and for past 52 days the hospitals of the country have been crippled. The Kenyatta National Hospital, which is the oldest hospital, is deserted and empty.

Doctors are in demand of 300 percent pay rise. The current pay is about $1,350 a month.

The medical practitioners walked off the job last year in December following refusal by government in implementing a three-year-old joint collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

Apart from doctors, the lecturers at public universities too have joined the strike and have refused to teach over poor pay.

The demand for better wages has come from nurses too urging the government to streamline the disparities between the national and county workers.

The disgruntled employees in Kenya has made striking a rule and not the norm. Kenyan Airways too warned the same in October 2016 if top executives didn’t resign.

Corruption scandals have deepened in the country and the government has been bedeviled.

Meanwhile, the government has repeatedly maintained its stand that meeting the demands of doctors is not affordable.

An internal audit from the ministry of health conducted in 2016 found over 5 billion shillings in diverted funds.

Some of the scandals found included purchase of $1,000 wheelbarrows, spending $85 on a ballpoint pen and spending $4,400 on 18 custom-made condom dispensers.

Kenyas lawmakers bag handsome salaries and it is considered as among the highest in the world, but abreast of it the essential drugs and medical equipment remains unavailable in the hospitals.

Many doctors and nurses have left the country too for better jobs in developed countries.