Economy

City Hall threatens to fire striking doctors

citi

City Hall in Nairobi. PHOTO | FILE

The Nairobi City County has given striking doctors 72 hours to explain why they should not be fired over persistent strike.

County Secretary Robert Ayisi on Thursday said the county had met all the demands in the return-to-work agreement signed on September 30 but the 105 medics are dissatisfied.

“As a county, we have fulfilled our side of the bargain and working on what is remaining,” said Dr Ayisi.

On Monday, City Hall failed to axe the doctors, who are demanding promotion, after giving them a day-long ultimatum.

Dr Ayisi said sacking the health workers was a process and that is why they have been issued with show-cause letters.

If the doctors do not respond to the letters, he said, their positions would be advertised and filled.

Promotion letters

The County Secretary said City Hall had confirmed the appointment of 37 medical officers, included all doctors who were not on the county payroll and paid their arrears in full to the tune of Sh34 million.

Some 56 doctors, he said, had also been promoted and the county service board was processing the promotion of doctors in job groups P and Q.

The doctors, who have been on strike since September, have dismissed threats to fire them and continued to down their tools.

In September, they paralysed operations in all the county hospitals for 19 days and called off the strike only for a week before resuming the boycott on October 14.

Dr Ayisi said they had ordered the superintendents of all hospitals in the county to take a roll call with a view of punishing workers absconding duty.

He said service delivery has not been paralysed at the hospitals "as nurses and consultancies are taking care of the patients".
The county is also hiring part-time doctors and engaging trainees, who will be paid at government rates, to replace the striking medics.

Chairman the County Assembly's Health Committee Manoah Mboku has supported the move to sack the doctors, saying that they have difficult to negotiate with.

Manoah said service delivery has been overstretched at Kenyatta National Hospital because of the crisis plaguing county health facilities.

“Just visit Kenyatta Hospital. Patients are lying on the floor untreated following the stalemate of doctors in the county,” said Mr Mboku.