Kenyan Doctors Strike to Protest Work Conditions Amid Covid-19

(Bloomberg) -- Members of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union withdrew their services starting Monday after eight months of talks between the state and the union failed to resolve issues concerning their welfare and safety.

Doctors are protesting “no provision of medical insurance, workman-injury benefits and compensation and lack of adequate quality PPEs,” the union said in a statement on Twitter. “Health care workers have died and are now facing threats of sacking for protesting.”

Efforts by lawmakers to mediate the stalemate between the health workers’ unions and the government failed and the strike is likely to slow the fight against the coronavirus in the East African nation, which has 94,500 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 1,639 fatalities as at Dec. 20, according to the Ministry of Health data.

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