Kenyan doctors on Friday rejected the government's offer of a 40 percent pay rise in the latest bid to end a month-long strike that has crippled public hospitals across the country. Thousands of doctors in the country downed tools on December 5 to demand a 300 percent pay rise that they say was agreed in a 2013 collective bargaining agreement (CBA), and several rounds of negotiations have failed as the medics dig their heels in.
Nurses are also striking, although some returned to work in mid-December after reaching a separate deal with authorities. Union officials on Wednesday met with President Uhuru Kenyatta who offered to raise minimum salaries from 140,244 shillings (1270 euros, $1350) a month to 196,989 shillings. "The union officials today presented that offer to the doctors for deliberations and they humbly rejected it," the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) wrote on its Twitter account.
The union said the offer failed to take into account other agreements mentioned in the CBA, from the need to better equip hospitals to funding research and addressing the security of doctors at work. "The issue of discussion is not increase in salaries or allowances for that matter, it is implementation of the CBA," said cardiologist and union member Elijah Ogolla.
KMPDU secretary general Ouma Oluga said that while the strike was still on, doctors were open to further negotiations. Another meeting between the government and the union officials was due to take place later Friday. The strike has been devastating for sick Kenyans whose only other option is private healthcare, which is out of reach for most. Poor salaries and working conditions have led to an exodus of Kenyan doctors to other African countries and abroad, that prompted the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) to warn of "catastrophe" in the health sector in 2014.
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