Machakos Governor Wavinya Ndeti has threatened to sack striking doctors as healthcare services remain paralyzed in the county for close to a week now.
Ndeti warned that she would sack all the healthcare providers who failed to resume work immediately as earlier ordered by a Machakos court.
She said all the medics were obliged to obey the order issued by the Employment and Labour Relations Court suspending the ongoing strike by medical officers that started on Tuesday.
The court sitting in Machakos issued the order last Friday.
“I am telling the doctors that we now work as per the law. I respect you, but you have abused that respect. I have obtained a court order compelling you to return to work or else I sack you,” Ndeti said.
Ndeti addressed congregants at a church in Mwala subcounty on Sunday.
She said her administration had fulfilled all the doctors’ demands including premium medical insurance coverage and effecting promotions of numerous medical staff, but the doctors still insisted on proceeding on strike in solidarity with other medical practitioners across the country.
The Machakos County CEO directed the chief officer for medical services Justus Kasivu to crack the whip on medical officers who abscond duty.
Ndeti issued the threats shortly after the striking healthcare workers dismissed the order granted by Principal Judge Byram Ogaya in case number ELRCPET/E005/2024 Machakos County Government vs Kenya Union of Clinical Officers (KUCO) and Boniface M. Mutuku and one other person.
The medics maintained that their strike which entered their fifth day on Sunday was still on.
KMPDU Lower Eastern chairperson Charles Okumu said they won’t bow until the county government meets their demands.
Okumu said no ‘mere notice’ would make doctors rescind their decision to strike.
“The devolution of healthcare should make services available for all Kenyans and ensure medics are motivated, but what is happening at the county is ironical,” Okumu said.
They addressed the press at Machakos Level 5 Hospital on Sunday.
Okumu said the court order instructing striking healthcare providers to return to work pending a case to be heard on October 16 was a way of infringing their rights.
A spot check by the Star established that Machakos County hospitals were deserted with no doctors at work as desperate patients who had sought healthcare services returned to their homes unattended.
Okumu claimed that Ndeti’s administration had refused to heed to their demands including redesignation, insurance coverage and promotions which they have been pushing for in the last two years.
He said several doctors had served in the county for more than eight years without any promotion and they have been signing many return-to-work formulas which have never been implemented.
Okumu dismissed the assertions by the county that healthcare workers in the county have portrayed themselves in a special manner since they’re the only department of the ten that have received promotions and urged other departments to follow suit for their grievances to be addressed.