By Patricia Mollyne Mataga
The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists, and Dentist Union has come up to put things straight over claims it had backtracked on agreements with the government.
This is after the Council of Governors and the national government accused the striking doctors of being insincere in regard to the ongoing talks.
According to the government, they had reached an agreement over the strike, only for the doctors to backtrack.
But in a post on his verified X handle, KMPDU national secretary general Devji Attela said as doctors, they are ready to give in to all the demands they have issued, except for the medical interns issues.
They described the interns as a vulnerable group whom they will not abandon.
“Dear Government, the doctors are saying that since you have publicly said that you conceded to 18 of our 19 demands(except internship), kindly take back the 18 and give us the 1,” Attela said in part of the post.
“As a community, we are not used to abandoning the most vulnerable, and to us, interns are currently very vulnerable,” he added.
The doctors had listed at least 19 issues they wanted the government to address.
However, the issue of posting medical interns has taken centre stage, especially the matter of huge wages contained in the 2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
The CBA set the interns’ salary at Ksh206,000 per month but the government wants the amount slashed to Ksh70.
Earlier in the day, the Council of Governors said the talks had broken down after KMPDU renegated an earlier agreement.
Public Service Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria also waded into the matter, insisting that the government was not against medical interns getting a huge salary.
“If the doctors think we’re against them, I will move to Cabinet to present a proposal that all government workers be converted to contract. There will be no permanent but rather contract and pensionable,” Kuria said.
President William Ruto is already on record rejecting the medical interns’ salary demand.
He said the government cannot be able to pay such a huge salary yet they are handling the wage bill issue.
Doctors have been on strike for over a month now.
