KMPDU Secretary General Ouma Oluga arrives for talks with inter-religious leaders at the ACK Gardens in Nairobi on March 6, 2017, the 92nd day of the doctors strike. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA
The breakdown in negotiations between striking doctors and their employers marks yet another worrying symptom in the ailing health sector.
That doctors and government mandarins have failed to put aside their egos and come up with a compromise points to a callous indifference to the widespread suffering across the country. It appears that no number of deaths is enough to nudge the protagonists from their hardline positions.
We may never know the number of lives lost due to the strike. But we know with certainty that hundreds may have stood a fighting chance if the warring parties put a premium on lives and negotiated a return to work formula. President Uhuru Kenyatta on Wednesday termed the strike as blackmail and announced that the State would wield the stick over the carrot going forward in dealing with the standoff.
In as much as we appreciate his leadership in the matter, we’d like to point out that the move may equally be construed as blackmail. While it will be in the public interest to have doctors back in hospital wards, we’d rather have doctors who won’t work begrudgingly, endangering the lives of patient.
The only way out of this impasse, is therefore, for both parties to end the grandstanding and negotiate in good faith, bearing in mind the high cost it is taking on human lives.
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