Why a doctor’s strike?

Dr Wambui Waithaka tells you why medics broke away from the norm and downed their tools.

‘Somethings gotta give’ is a slang phrase which menas applying unrelenting force or pressure on a person, object or situation, until eventually they yield.

I did my internship at a national referral hospital and I value my training there. They had the best consultants and the doctors who were training for their masters (registrars), doubled as my knowledgeable supervisors and encouraging teammates.

The other interns were my reminder that I’m not alone, the ever-supporting nursing, other hospital staff and the diverse patients made the youth in me say, "I saw it all."

But, this hospital was bursting at the seams. I hope to one day forget a night when I was the only doctor covering my paediatric ward and three other wards.

That night in my ward, five children required resuscitation at the same time, but the acute room had only two working and occupied oxygen outlets. The other outlets in the ward were also serving other critically sick children, some serving two at a time.

Imagine one doctor and one nurse and there are five mothers, each holding out their dying child to you for help. How do you choose?

In that scenario, the patient dies and the doctor dies too.

A national referral hospital paediatric ward should never run out of oxygen outlets. It should be fully equipped and have enough doctors to efficiently meet the demand.

Similar and even worse stories are told in the provincial and district hospitals and this is unacceptable.

It seems like we are unwilling participants in mass execution of sick Kenyans.

A former Kenya Medical Association Chair Dr James Nyikal was quoted by the New York Times in 2001 as saying, "At government hospitals in Kenya, doctors want what doctors want everywhere: white coats, plastic gloves, pharmaceuticals -— but they also want to earn more than a taxi driver."

The doctors with the blessing of the new Constitution formed a union seeking to improve our welfare and reform the country’s health sector.

Activity towards this was met with apathy, intimidation, sympathy, and empty promises from the Government, stakeholders, human rights advocates and sadly, other doctors in the system.

On December 5 last year, we walked out of the hospitals to demand for reforms and better pay.

Our colleagues, patients, relatives and friends told us to raise hell and not to return empty-handed.

On December 12, it seemed like someone finally heard us and two days later, we called off the strike and returned to work.

A task force was set up to deal with policy and related matters in the 13-point proposal presented by the Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union, to improve health care in Kenya remained at work at the ministry.

We however, did not go back to work with oxygen, gloves or pharmaceuticals.

The registrar, who pays for their own masters programme and works beyond their curriculum generating revenue, still earns less than a taxi driver.

So the question is, did the doctors achieve their intended purpose from the industrial action?

No longer a hopeless overseer of tragedy but an active empowered soldier in a war to see Kenyans unafraid to seek medical care and a doctor enabled to live within the dignity our community invested in, I would say, industrial action was only the beginning.

When studying and working, he must act also to change the conditions, which cripple his community.

What would I tell the individuals and families of anyone who was adversely affected by the absence of doctors during the strike?

I am so sorry. I wish it did not have to be that way. I wish there was another way.

Dr Wambui Waithaka, is the national treasurer Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union.