Trouble at Nairobi County as Doctors issue strike notice to NMS
Health care workers stage a protest during the ongoing doctors' strike in Kenya.
By Mourice Seretta
The Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union, KMPDU, Nairobi County Chapter has issued a strike notice to the Nairobi Metropolitan Services, NMS, saying that the Doctors working in Nairobi County will down their tools if their grievances are not heard and addressed.
In a notice to NMS, The Union’s County Secretary Thuranira Kaugiria says the union has listed five demands that they want met failure to which the City County will face the Doctors strike beginning August 21st 2020.
Thuranira says City Doctors are demanding for a comprehensive National Hospital Insurance Fund covers, salaries and arrears for five specialists dating back six months, promotion of some senior doctors and a special Covid-19 isolation facilities for health workers.
‘Our NHIF covers have not been active since the beginning of last month. At least 15 doctors in Nairobi have contracted the Covid-19 since community spread began in April. The medics recovered at home without the need for hospitalisation.The union has noted with a lot of concern that the county does not have an isolation facility dedicated for health care workers in the county,” Thuranira said.
Thuranira further says that the quality of Personal Protective Equipment, PPEs, delivered in city public hospitals was wanting, forcing healthcare workers to improvise their own equipment. He argues that it is appropriate that the nation and the public at large acknowledge that healthcare workers are always on harm’s way.
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