Doctors union leaders to appear in court tomorrow despite arrest warrants

Officials of the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU) now risk arrest when they present themselves in court on Monday for the mention of a case filed by the Council of Governors (CoG) seeking to compel doctors to call off their strike.

This as the medics maintain that they will not report back to work unless their collective bargaining agreement signed in 2013 is implemented, even as they continued to maintain that they will not review their team of negotiators as directed by the Labour Ministry. 

The industrial court is on Monday expected to give direction on the contempt of court case filed by the Council of Governors which had sought a court injunction seeking to bar the strike from going on.

Sources privy to the doctors’ union have intimated to Citizen TV that the medics who spent the better part of the Sunday being briefed by their lawyers plan to show up in court despite the warrants of arrest placed on the officials.

The medics have also maintained that they will not review their team of negotiators to include the chairman, the secretary general, and the treasurer in the tri-party talks being held under the supervision of the Ministry of Labour.

The medics have said that they will only resume duty upon the implementation of their collective bargaining agreement, a hardline decision that has seen patients in dire need of their services suffer as the industrial action enters its third week on Monday.