Protest and pain – Kenya's month-long doctors' strike
By Basillioh Rukanga
Most of the beds at the labour ward of Kihara Level 4 Hospital on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, are empty.
Only three are occupied out of more than a dozen.
A nurse says the hospital is not taking in women who need a Caesarean as there is no doctor to perform the operation.
The doctors here – and across the country – have been on strike for about a month now.
Public hospitals are virtually empty. There is an unsettling silence in places normally brimming with people seeking a host of critical services.
Patients are now forced to go to expensive private hospitals or delay treatment, resulting in worsening chronic illnesses and sometimes deaths.
Doctors are striking over a number of issues, including pay and the failure to hire trainee doctors, who cannot qualify without getting an intern position.
The medics are aware of the problems the strike is causing but argue that industrial action is necessary “to help the public get quality health care” in the long run, as their working conditions and the lack of equipment mean they cannot treat patients properly, says Davji Bhimji, the secretary-general of the doctors’ union, KMPDU.
