 |
Kenyan
medical students protest in solidarity with a doctor's strike in the capital
Nairobi on January 19, 2017 ©Simon Maina (AFP)
|
A Kenyan court on
Thursday gave doctors and nurses five days to end a crippling nationwide
strike, reneging on an earlier threat to jail union officials.
AFP
report continues:
The
strike that began on December 5 has left public hospitals shut and patients
unable to get basic medical care for more than seven weeks.
Hellen
Wasilwa, a judge at Kenya's Employment and Labour Relations Court, on January
12 gave seven union officials one-month suspended sentences and ordered them to
end the strike within two weeks.
But
as that ultimatum passed on Thursday she gave the officials another five-day
reprieve.
"I
hereby suspend the sentence further for five days and this is not for
negotiation but for calling off the strike," she said.
The
officials are due back in court on January 31.
Doctors
have rejected a government offer of a 40 percent rise saying that it fell short
of promises made in a 2013 agreement and failed to address other issues such as
staff shortages and lack of equipment.
Kenyan
university lecturers also went on strike a week ago over pay.
The widespread, disruptive industrial action comes months before an August general election.
No comments:
Post a Comment