Unions are dying forces

The Labour Relations Act requires that such agreements be registered with the Industrial Court, something that had not been done by either the government or the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU) when they entered into the agreement in 2013.

... The doctors are hanging on the promises of a document that the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary say is illegal, but they insist that a promise is a promise, and it should be kept.

I knew it was a hack job

Now the supposed writer of the article says she did not write it.

and Nation has conveniently replaced her name with an anonymous "nation correspondent"


This newspaper is probably the cause of all the stupid voting in this country.

How many times do they lie in a day? And how much do I pay a nation journalist? I hear its 527 for bloggers. What's the going rate for a journalist and an editor who allows a lie to be printed on their paper?

@kenyanpundit In 2006 after I completed my internship at KNH, GOK posted me to Mandera. My folks beseeched me not to go, but I decided to.
mind you, 6 other Docs who'd been posted there before me at various times, had immediately resigned after getting the posting.
so I go there with promises from GOK that if I work there for 2 yrs, they'll sponsor me for post graduate studies..

@kenyanpundit I get there & coz the hospital borders both Ethiopia & Somalia, I'm adviced to never sleep on bed in the quarters provided.
reason being, I may catch a stray bullet in my sleep. So, I'm to sleep on a mat on the floor for my own protection.
meanwhile they give me a hardship allowance of Ksh 600 ( it's Ksh 1200 if you're married )...
they promote me to a different job group, but my salary actually reduces. Reason being, house allowance in Mandera is 8k.
house allowance in Nairobi was 20k. So, I'm in a higher job group but getting lesser pay.
while in KNH, my net salary was 50k..In Mandera, it was 32k..So I'm the only Dr for miles around..
Mandera is approximately 1200 km from Nairobi. Traveling by bus would take a minimum of 2 days coz, no roads just camel tracks
fare to Mandera was Ksh 2500 at that time...Nairobi to Kampala was Ksh 2000..
I get there, there's nothing!!!No gloves, sutures, drugs etc...Almost all prescptions I wrote,patients had to go buy outside!
managed to borrow a few supplies from some NGO ( Save the children )..
at that time, Mandera had the highest Maternal & Fetal mortality rate in Kenya! I lobby the MOH to post a Gynae..
I also lobby AMREF,with their flying Drs program to consider including us in their monthly program where they operate for free
they agree & fly out every month with specialists in various fields flying over to perform various procedures for free...
the MOH finally posts a Gynae. My leave is finally approved & I go home..
after my leave is over, I'm at Eastleigh by 4:30 am to depart for Mandera with 'Desert Cruiser' which is leaving at 5:00 am..

@kenyanpundit I was on seat number 6..We reach Mwingi & the bus rolls. Number 1-10 die on the spot , except me number 6.

I was thrown out of the window when the bus started rolling...probably only reason I'm alive today...
I sustain multiple fractures & life threatening wounds. Rushed to Mwingi district hospital...
where they say my condition too severe, they can't handle so referral to KNH...
taken to KNH, where I spend more than an hour bleeding pale casualty. Folks ( who we met up with in casualty ) say f*** IT!!!
they requisition an ambulance & I'm shipped off to Avenue, where I'm ingizwad theater on arrival..
I I spend 3 weeks in hospital...Total bill almost 600k...Luckily I got some waivers from the surgeons who operated..
parents have to do a harambee to pay hospital bill coz NHIF paid only bed charges...
given 90 days sick leave...go to Afya house after they're up to ask for transfer coz still undergoing physiotherapy..
DMS tells me to go back to Mandera & they'll process my transfer when I'm there??!!..I RESIGNED ON THE SPOT!!!..

@kenyanpundit That's how much contempt GOK has for its Doctors!!!

When one applies for a job in gov't, one should be ready to be posted to any part of Kenya. So there is nothing wrong with being posted to Mandera. Also the house allowance differs depending on the area you are serving. A 2bdrm house in Nairobi doesn't cost the same as a 2bdrm in Mandera and that is why those in smaller towns get less for housing.

The doctor mixes issues when he blames the gov't for the accident he was involved in and the subsequent experience. He should be telling us why doctors who were trained in the same class or university but now serve in different hospitals seems to have different capacities to handle medical cases with those at Mwingi and KNH unable to treat him but those are the private Avenue hospital were able to do it. It shows that doctors serving in public hospitals are negligent. Those at Avenue hospital may be having "daily targets" and also any negative customer feedback may lead to them losing their jobs which isn't the case with gov't docs and thus the laxity.

So all that i am saying is that what that doctor has written up there is total bullcrap.

Is the latest in the Press quoting doctors apropos: 'We are ready to compromise if government is willing to compromise'

Very swamped today but I can't let this lie pass.

Anti_Burglar don't pretend you are neutral in this story.

That is like pretending that Nation is neutral in the story..


That piece was an absolute hack job from a company that is owned by a competitor who would not want those doctors leaving his company.

When you want to read an media hack job, this is what they write....

1. Dr Mailu, the soft-spoken geneticist
2. at the centre of all the hubris
3. the negotiators’ inflexibility (i assume its the doctors since Mailu is softspoken)

And the worst piece of this hackathon

"Daily Nation is today exposing the insincerity, backtracking and outright arm-twisting"

Somehow they are now the guiding light of our nation...This paper is slowly loosing it's credibility.

This newspaper is lying without shame to its readers.




The KMPDU cannot register any agreement. Only the gov't can do that.

This other quote



Only the Executive has said it is illegal. The Legislature has not debated this matter. And the Judiciary in a ruling basically said the gov't was not doing what it should have done.

So why is Nation lying?

Write a neutral story not one filled with emotional undertones of a perfect gov't and a conniving doctor.

I don't know why Nation just wrote an article totally blaming one side for all the death in hospitals...Then coat it with emotion and an outright lie..

But you journalists on wazua can advise if this is common practice.

Yes...