It
has been 46 days since doctors went on strike over their 2013 CBA agreement
with the government. However, the writing is on the wall; the government is not
about to yield anytime soon to the doctors demands.
This
can only mean one of three things;
One
The
first is obvious. The government does not give a hoot about the plight of doctors
or any other worker(s) in this country. But most importantly, it does not give
a cows shit about the wellbeing of its citizens. And that precisely is why hapless
patients are succumbing to death due to lack of specialised medical attention occasioned
by the doctors’ strike.
Two
Two
KMPDU
is (still) toothless. This is a bitter pill to swallow. I know. But look at it
this way, when KNUN called a nation-wide nurses boycott thereby paralyzing
health services in the country, the government moved with speed and awarded the
caregivers at least KES 15,000 as special “nurses allowance” to appease them to
return to work. And return to work they did leaving the doctors to soldier on
alone in their strike.
It
is common knowledge that nurses have the numbers on their side and therefore
any boycott makes their absence from the hospitals sting like a bee. Two factors
render the doctors (and their union) less ‘effective’ in organising a strike
whose impact is ‘feel-able’ at every level; the number of doctors and the existence
of the cadre of Clinical Officers who are currently not on strike.
Three
I
have forgotten the third point. Let’s just move on!
WAY
FORWARD?
One.
Giant. Healthcare. Providers. Union! Instead of having every cadre in the
health sector clamor to register separate and several small ‘toothless’ entities
that masquerade as unions, they could think outside the box and register one
mega union covering all cadres of the healthcare workforce from doctors, nurses,
clinical officers, to lab technicians, pharmacists (is that what they are called?), health records officers, counselors and other cadre in the cog of healthcare services.
Imagine
the kind of power a union like that would wield! COTU would be envious! When a
union like that calls for a strike, it would be the mother of all strikes. In fact
there would be no strike at all. The mere mention of a strike would frighten the
government into addressing their issues of contention with speed. It would spare us from these endless piecemeal strikes!
Over
to Seth Panyako, Seth Oluga and the rest to chew on that! Case closed!
PS:
For a concept like this to sail through, the doctors would have to put an end
to their characteristic superiority complex nonsense. No profession is more
important than the others to the point of existing on its own. Lawyers,
doctors, nurses, engineers, mechanics, journalists; we all need one another.
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