Kenyan Doctors Warn They May Join Nurses’ Prolonged Strike

NAIROBI – The atmosphere in Kenya’s hospitals has grown tense. For the past six weeks, nurses have been on strike, demanding that a 2017 collective‑bargaining agreement finally be put into practice. The protest, which began over pay and allowances, has now spilled over into the doctors’ community.

“We are doctors, not nurses,” Dr. Davji Bhimji Atellah, secretary‑general of the doctors’ union, wrote in a short post on X on Tuesday. He added that the hospitals are already feeling the pinch of a chronic doctor shortage, and that the extra workload is unsustainable. “When one part of healthcare is compromised, we all suffer,” he warned.

The nurses’ march on Tuesday was a sea of scrubs and determined faces heading for the Council of Governors’ office. The council, a body meant to coordinate the 47 county governments, was slated to meet with the Salaries and Remuneration Commission to discuss pay, but no concrete solution emerged.

Atellah gave the government a stark ultimatum: seven days to address the nurses’ grievances, or the doctors will issue a strike notice of their own. “We will not watch silently as the system we have dedicated our lives to deteriorates,” he said, his tone mixing frustration with a hint of resolve.

For the nurses, the fight is personal as well as professional. Seth Panyako, head of the nursing union, accused the government of treating health‑care budgeting as an afterthought, leaving patients to bear the brunt. “The excuse that there is no budget for the 2017 agreement is unfair to the nurses who keep the hospitals running,” he told reporters.

Meanwhile, individual nurses like James Murimi trekked five kilometres to the protest, voicing a grievance that has lingered for almost a decade: unpaid allowances. “We have nine years of arrears,” Murimi said, shaking his head. “The government owes us that money, plain and simple.”

Legal pressure is also mounting. The Senate debated the closure of hospital dispensaries in a few counties, and Senator Samson Cherargei of Nandi County warned of a “surge in deaths” that he blames on the standoff between the Council of Governors and the Salaries and Remuneration Commission.

Ahmed Abdullahi, chair of the Council of Governors, tried to play peacemaker, urging nurses to suspend the strike while negotiations continue. He reminded them that a court had already ruled the strike illegal and that counties could take disciplinary action.

With patients waiting in crowded corridors and doctors juggling both medical and nursing duties, the pressure is palpable. The doctors’ union says they will not stand by while the health‑care system crumbles, but whether the government will act within the promised week remains uncertain.

What is clear, however, is that the standoff highlights deeper systemic problems: chronic underfunding, staffing shortages, and a collective bargaining agreement that has sat idle for years. Until those issues are addressed, Kenya’s health‑care workers may find themselves back on the streets, and patients the unfortunate collateral damage.