Details on areas of disagreement between doctors, govt emerge

The mediation team in the doctor’s strike on Thursday maintained that there are three sticky issues that are yet to be resolved.

In a report presented to court Thursday, March 2 morning, the mediation team stated that by Wednesday, March 1, 2017, it received communication that the doctors’ union wished to present a revised proposal to the Ministry of Health and the Council of Governors for their consideration.

The report presented before the court sought further directions of the court stating that parties had failed to agree on key issues related to the dispute.

The sticky issues are revision of the basic salary and aspects of the payable allowances.

The report, that has since been treated as an interim report to allow inter-religious of Kenya see whether they can find a solution to the sticky issues, reveals that the Ministry of Health could not change the basic salaries offered to doctors .

“The rationale was that even a small change would have huge fiscal implications as the basic salaries applied to all other categories across the public service,” reads the document.

So far parties have resolved the issue on internship, draft recognition agreement for the 47 counties and majority of the clauses in the draft CBA.

In the interim report, the doctors’ union says that it had on two previous occasions revised its position and reviewed proposals on the basic salaries and allowances, and the government position remained unchanged.

The report reveals that the Ministry of Health together with the Council of Governors have maintained that the CBA 2013 is not legal and asked doctors to call off the strike adding that it was the Ministry and COG was negotiating under pressure.

The Ministry contended that some of the parties that the union seeks to include in the process are different employers who were not parties (privy) to the CBA they were negotiating.

The Ministry of Health demanded that the doctors call off the strike and enter into a return-to-work agreement that would set out the contents of a CBA to be negotiated and adopted.

The Ministry proposed that the return-to-work agreement could be filed in court and the court mandated to monitor its implementation in order to prevent a repeat of the circumstances surrounding the 2013 CBA.

The Council of Governors argued that it has no jurisdiction in implementing the CBA as the correct employer at County level are the County Public Service Boards.

COG further maintained that the union would have to sign separate agreements with each of the 47 County.

The Court of Appeal on Thursday ruled that the report filed in court be treated as an interim report.

Senior Counsel, James Orengo, however, asked the court to treat the report filed by the mediation team as pending, a prayer that was opposed by the Council of Governors lawyer, Eunice Lumala.

“Treat the report as final since the mediation process has failed,” Lumala submitted.

Justice Koome, however, indicated that the issue before the court is an extraordinary matter.