Striking doctors threaten to shut private hospitals

Kenyan doctors and nurses warned Thursday they will extend a strike crippling public hospitals to private clinics as well next week, unless the government offers them more in a pay dispute. Public hospitals have been deserted for four days, with patients left to fend for themselves, forced to return home or transfer to private clinics […]

Kenyan doctors and nurses warned Thursday they will extend a strike crippling public hospitals to private clinics as well next week, unless the government offers them more in a pay dispute.
Public hospitals have been deserted for four days, with patients left to fend for themselves, forced to return home or transfer to private clinics as healthcare workers embarked on a mass stayaway.
“It is very important for Kenyans to know that we don’t hate going to work, we love our work but it has come to a situation where we need to tell the government that we are serious this time,” nurse Eunice Ngare told AFP during a protest march.
Unions are demanding a 300-percent pay rise for doctors and 25- to 40-percent pay rise for nurses that they say was agreed in a 2013 collective bargaining agreement, but has yet to be implemented.