NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 15- Kenyan doctors on Sunday issued a 3-week strike notice following the death of four colleagues in a day, as COVID-19 infections surge.
Through their union, Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU), the doctors decried negligence by the government, attributing this to the high fatality rate among doctors.
By Sunday, the disease had claimed 1,269 lives, after 20 succumbed.
“We are not in a suicide mission,” the union’s Secretary-General Chibanzi Mwachonda said.
He added that “Over the last 8 months KMPDU has continuously engaged all relevant government ministries, parastatals, and council of governors, the legislature and followed all relevant channels in employment and labor relations in a bid to address the plight of frontline healthcare workers.”
Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe said he had on Monday convened a special meeting, to discuss the pandemic and ways to reverse the worrying trend.
“We shall also deliberate on the issues affecting our health workers countrywide including the supply of personal protective equipment and other enabling measures as they go about combating the virus among our people,” he said in a statement.
Despite renewed measures to enforce health protocols, a spot check by Shahidi News has established, that many Kenyans continue to take little or no precaution.
A section of security officers equally are seemingly fatigued from enforcing the rules since March while others are exploiting them to extort mostly from the public service vehicles and bar owners.
Kenya’s COVID-19 caseload now stands at 70, 245 after 972 people turned positive on Sunday.
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