Patrick Amoth, the Ministry of Health’s Acting Director General, has shed light on the ongoing deadlock regarding the doctors’ strike, attributing it to the challenging situation of managing limited finances against the backdrop of escalating demands from medical professionals.
Amoth acknowledges the gravity of the crisis within the health sector, now exacerbated by a fourteen-day-long strike by doctors protesting against the ministry’s failure to assign medical interns and adhere to the terms outlined in the 2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
Expressing the Ministry’s predicament, Amoth points out the surge in the number of medical interns seeking placements, juxtaposed with the constrained capacity to accommodate them due to budgetary constraints set by the National Treasury.
“We need additional medical personnel and facilities to cater to the growing number of student doctors,” Amoth emphasized during an interview with Spice FM.
Highlighting the Ministry’s appeal for supplementary funding from the Treasury, Amoth elaborated on the Treasury’s response, indicating that the current budgetary cycle faces stringent fiscal limitations, with projected revenues falling short of targets.
This has led to increased demands for financial allocations for various priorities, including loan repayments.
In light of these fiscal constraints, the Ministry was advised to optimize existing resources, resulting in the inability to assign doctor interns as per their requests.
The Council of Governors (CoG) convened an extraordinary meeting to address the impasse surrounding the doctors’ strike and the enforcement of court orders issued by the Employment and Labour Relations court.
As the strike persists, doctors from Nakuru and Meru counties have taken to the streets to amplify their demands, while medical laboratory officers have issued a seven-day ultimatum threatening to join the strike unless their grievances are addressed promptly.