The planned strike by the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU) is a distress signal from those the Kenyan people entrust with their lives.
Development Diaries reports that the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union has announced a planned strike in Nairobi City County from 27 February, 2025, to protest salary delays and stalled promotions.
‘All Nairobi County doctors will down their tools at midnight on 27 February due to illegal salary stoppages and dismissals, chronic salary delays, stalled promotions, unpaid gratuities, and delayed confirmation letters’, the union said in a statement.
We understand that this renewed standoff came after a video surfaced of Health Cabinet Secretary Deborah Barasa saying the government would pay the new cohort of medical interns Sh70,000 instead of Sh206,000 agreed upon in the 2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
The chronic salary delays, illegal stoppages, stalled promotions, and unpaid gratuities that have pushed doctors to this point are not just injustices, they are direct threats to the very fabric of Kenya’s healthcare system.
Doctors are the backbone of the country’s health sector, yet they continue to face administrative neglect. How can citizens and the government expect them to provide quality care when they, themselves, are financially crippled and professionally disregarded?
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), an optimal doctor-to-patient ratio is 1:1,000, yet Kenya lags far behind, with an estimated 1:17,000 ratio.
If the government continues to ignore the plight of healthcare workers, this gap will only widen, leading to dire consequences for millions of Kenyans.
The government’s refusal to honour the 2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which guaranteed medical interns a salary of KSh 206,000, is a betrayal of trust.
Development Diaries calls on the Kenyan Ministry of Health to ensure that all pending salaries and gratuities are paid without further delay. The government must honour its obligations and pay medical interns the agreed salaries.
Photo source: Capital News
