Kenyan doctors demand pay increase

Photo/PHOEBE OKALL/NATION Kenya medical practitioners, pharmacists and dentists union (KMPDU) secretary general Dr Boniface Chitayi (centre), national Treasurer Dr Wambui Waithaka (right) and chairman Dr Victor Ng'ani during a press conference on November 19, 2011.  

By BENJAMIN MUINDI
Posted  Sunday, November 20  2011 at  11:15

Doctors in public hospitals are demanding a new scheme of service that will see the gross salary of the lowest paid rise to Sh240, 000 up from the current Sh60, 000.

The highest paid doctor – a medical specialist – will take home a gross salary of Sh520, 000 up from the current 130,000.

The doctors, who have threatened to go on strike in December, said this increase will only affect their basic pay during daytime work hours of 8am to 5pm.

The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) further demanded compensation for night hours, proposing a rate of 1.5 times the amount paid during normal working hours.

The union said this new scheme for the 2,300 doctors in the country’s public hospitals was long overdue.

“We have passed a resolution to go on strike with effect from December 5 following futile attempts by our union to engage the government in discussions,” KMPDU secretary general Boniface Chitayi said over the weekend.

Dr Chitayi blamed the government for the mass exodus of doctors from Kenya to Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, where it is said they are offered a better scheme of service.

In Kenya, the lowest paid doctor (medical officer-intern) earns a gross salary of Sh60,000 while the highest paid (medical specialist 2) takes home Sh130,000.

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A medical officer earns Sh76,000 after one year of employment and Sh100,000 after three years in public service where they are referred to as senior medical officers.

Kenyan doctors train for up to five years or more in universities, unlike other degrees that take a maximum of four years.

“If our demands are not met, doctors will stay at home neither will there be any emergency calls unless the government calls us for negotiation in which case we are ready,” Dr Shitahi said.

He noted that doctors were highly exposed to risky infections, drugs, radiation and even assault from mentally unsound patients yet they did not enjoy any risk allowance like other public servants.

“But the irony of the noble profession is that doctors offer services which they cannot themselves afford,” he said, noting that they enjoyed a medical allowance of paltry Sh1, 740 per month.

Dr Chitayi spoke during a special delegates conference of the union in Nairobi where they noted that Kenya’s health sector was worse than it was 20 years ago.

For instance, the doctors said, death of children below one month in 1990 was 452 per 100,000 live births compared to 530 per 100,000 live births today.

Furthermore, there is a shortage of 40,000 doctors in the country to meet the ration of 1 doctor per 1,000 patients as required by the World Health Organisation.

“The social pillar of the country developmental blue print – Vision 2030 has outlined health care as a key area that should be developed,” said Dr Chitayi.