Healthcare shutdown looms as doctors threaten solidarity strike over nurses’ standoff
If the threatened solidarity strike goes ahead, patients could face an even more severe disruption of public healthcare services, with hospitals potentially losing the services of both nurses and doctors.
Patients suffering, anguish and preventable deaths might not end any time soon as the country’s healthcare crisis deepened after doctors threatened to join striking nurses in solidarity, giving the government seven days to resolve the prolonged dispute before they too down their tools.
The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) warned that doctors could withdraw their services in support of nurses, whose strike has now stretched beyond 40 days, leaving patients struggling to access essential care in public hospitals.
The threat raises the prospect of a wider healthcare shutdown, with two critical cadres potentially withdrawing their services at the same time. KMPDU says the prolonged absence of nurses has already pushed doctors beyond their limits, leaving hospitals operating under increasingly unsafe conditions.
Addressing the media yesterday, KMPDU Secretary-General Davji Atellah said doctors could no longer continue working without adequate nursing support, particularly in intensive care units, high-dependency units and hospital wards.
“The critical care that is offered by nurses cannot be offered by any other cadre. In the ICU, in the wards, in the HDU, only the nurses can offer that type of care,” Atellah noted.
Patients caught in the middle
The union said the nurses’ strike had moved beyond a labour dispute and was now threatening the delivery of essential healthcare services across the country.
Patients requiring nursing care have been left without critical support, while doctors have been forced to shoulder workloads normally shared between the two cadres.
“Patients who need nursing care cannot get it. Yet nursing care is very essential in healthcare,” KMPDU said.
The union warned that the prolonged disruption was being felt directly by patients, with worsening medical conditions, preventable complications and deaths being reported in hospitals.
“There are many deaths now in our hospitals. There are conditions that have worsened. There are many preventable complications that we cannot normalise, which could have been stopped,” the union said.
Doctors rally behind nurses
KMPDU’s threat to strike is not based solely on doctors’ working conditions but is intended as a show of solidarity with nurses and pressure on the government to resolve their grievances.
The union said the continued absence of nurses was making it increasingly difficult and unsafe for doctors to provide care.
“It is increasingly becoming unsafe for doctors without nurses. Doctors cannot work without nurses. Doctors are now overburdened. We cannot continue like this,” KMPDU said.
The seven-day ultimatum gives the government a narrow window to resolve the nurses’ dispute before doctors potentially join the industrial action.
If the threatened solidarity strike goes ahead, patients could face an even more severe disruption of public healthcare services, with hospitals potentially losing the services of both nurses and doctors.
