Friday 20 January 2017

HOW ABOUT A SINGLE HEALTH UNION?



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
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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