Salary demands by Kenya's striking doctors can only be implemented if they are removed from the civil servants’ category, dashing hopes of an end to the two-month industrial action.
Media Max Network reports that Kenya’s Health Cabinet secretary Cleopa Mailu has said the demands contained in the contentious Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) contradict Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) Act, hence cannot be honoured unless a new structure of salaries is introduced for doctors and nurses.
The report says his remarks dashes hopes of an end to the doctors’ strike which is in its second month.
Mailu at the same time faulted government officials who signed the CBA, whose failure to implement has seen operations paralysed at public hospitals as doctors stay away. The CBA was signed by the then Health Permanent Secretary Mark Bor in June, 2013 and was supposed to take effect on 1 July, the same year.
“It was a terrible mistake that we are now grappling with under the devolved system of governance that has put all health issues under counties,” said Mailu.
According to the report, he said the only mandate the national government has in the current impasse is on some 300 doctors attached to the Health Ministry, the National Spinal Injury, Kenyatta National, Moi Teaching and Referral and Mathari hospitals.
“So, no one should claim that doctors were seconded. Their salaries come from the counties, not National government,” said the CS. The CS argued that in the CBA, there is nothing new doctors are demanding apart from an upgraded salary scale.
For example, what doctors were given as car and mortgage loans of a minimum and maximum of Sh5m and Sh20m, respectively, is exactly what is in a circular by SRC dated 17 December, 2014 that awarded all public servants in the civil service the same benefits.
“The issue with doctors is that they do not want to be categorised as civil servants,” said Mailu. At the moment, doctors are already earning more than civil servants in the same job group.
Whereas the lowest paid doctor takes home a maximum of Sh149,000 a civil servant gets Sh77,000. The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) recently rejected a government’s offer of a 40% pay increase.
“The alleged 40% pay increase leaves out majority of the doctors. Also the emergency call allowance which increased from Sh30,000 to Sh66,000 is only applicable to 20% of the doctors,” said KMPDU secretary general Ouma Oluga.
The report says the prolonged strike has seen the government consider recalling resident doctors to work in public hospitals until the current stalemate is resolved. KMPDU has vowed not to resume work until the CBA is implemented.
[link url="http://www.mediamaxnetwork.co.ke/news/290623/doctors-demands-conflict-src-laws-says-mailu/"]Media Max Network report[/link]