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Post by hannali on Dec 14, 2011 7:00:18 GMT 3
Those gentlemen have fallen to the political expediency of these battle hardened conniving geriatrics and dinosaurs called government...to buy time and demoralise KMPDU
We are not Demoralised yet
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Post by tnk on Dec 14, 2011 10:55:29 GMT 3
Those gentlemen have fallen to the political expediency of these battle hardened conniving geriatrics and dinosaurs called government...to buy time and demoralise KMPDU We are not Demoralised yet hannali also remember in this fight there are things called realities i.e govt is a gigantic wheel that turns around once every century - in other words even if uhuru / kibaki / kinyua / ndungu (all the president's and money people) and what not were to agree to every line item, the mobilisation process can take anything from 1 week (absolute dictatorship) to 1 decade (true democracy) even with the best of goodwill. this is a good time to start exploring workable plan b strategy building on the 13 point issue based action plan (expand it, fill in the details, resource and phase it in realistic / achievable and workable resource provisions. don't drop the ball, just deal with the realities as well. call in experts, check out the folks at MARS group, USAID etc. there's plenty of health informatics experts amongst others who can be co-opted alongside medical professionals. lots of people (across the board) ready to work with the medical professionals. its not an us vs them. everyone is impacted by health concerns. side note the union/organisation/yourselves, should have anticipated a long drawn affair/impasse etc and come up with a program that ensures that no deaths occur or health complications are unattended to without compromising the unresolved dispute. in the bigger picture (final analysis), deaths and adverse ill health due to the strike are no different from the same occuring due to political influences such as what happened during the PEV only the method of delivery/application or rather "weapon of choice" is different (denial of treatment vs violence). this is a very delicate matter. folks like atwoli are not well resourced to handle this. he may have a good grasp of trade union dispute and resolution, but this goes way beyond that. i have some misgivings about the callousness of uhuru/kibaki/kinyua axis. there exists solution seekers (a handfull) in parliament and you need to reach out directly to those MPs. a quick look at the hansard will tell you which MPs are issue driven and unwavering. my point is that there are a lot of people and institutions who fully understand (empathize) and this would be a great time to tap on these resources to map out solutions (long and short term)
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Dec 14, 2011 16:33:33 GMT 3
As it stands, the doctors look confused and have lost the moral ground they stood on at the beginning of the strike. They seem not to know what they exactly want and with whom to work. Look at what they have done to COTU, Atwoli does not seem to know what to do with the doctors' union anymore. Kenyans too are confused with the doctors' moves. It seems to me a lost course.
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Post by adongo23456 on Dec 14, 2011 18:43:57 GMT 3
As it stands, the doctors look confused and have lost the moral ground they stood on at the beginning of the strike. They seem not to know what they exactly want and with whom to work. Look at what they have done to COTU, Atwoli does not seem to know what to do with the doctors' union anymore. Kenyans too are confused with the doctors' moves. It seems to me a lost course. hehehehehe: This whole mess is getting bigger than the doctors plight. The government of Kenya is running into a wall and making arbitrary decisions that don't make sense. It looks like that misguided "war" in Somalia has sucked up all the money. What a price to pay to have the Kenyan armed forces sitting at the border for months capturing donkeys. This is a grand mess and the doctors are standing very firm. If the confusion created by hasty arbitrary cabinet decisions is not put under check, we could end up with a massive labour unrest in the country to go together with galloping inflation, shaky shilling and a crappy economy. Not good. Here we go: www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=2000048330&cid=4&ttl=Civil%20Servants%20oppose%20cabinet’s%20freeze%20on%20wage%20increase
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Post by affirmed on Dec 14, 2011 19:51:30 GMT 3
Merlin, If you had a relative dying in those hospitals over an ailment that a doctor would treat in minutes your story here would be very different I bet. Thank God you are in North America where you only need to activate an EMS and ambulance arrives in minutes. We surely have a long way to go before reaching this end, but we should be careful not to come up with mechanisms that compromise the same lives that we are 'fighting to save' as has been the case with this strike. Master,You are right. I would be in grief an emotional feeling which would push my rational thinking far into the background. However situations cannot be analysed and improved by emotional feelings. To change the dilapidated health services needs rational thinking in search of solutions. This is what we are discussing here. Use your emotional feelings in private relations or in front of the TV watching sports or soap though it will not work well in discussion groups like JUKWAA. I am not in North America but in Ukunda at the South coast of Kenya. The nearest hospital is in Msambweni or Mombasa. However there are two excellent private hospitals within 3 Km distance at Diani Beach for the AAR insured, well to do citizens or tourists visiting our beautiful beaches. This is the unfair two pronged health organisation in Kenya. But change will come and a national health insurance for everyone could see light in the future. I think it could be based on private insurance companies and hospitals (to improve services by competition) within a framework set by the government. Merlin, I couldn't agree more with your observation to the effect that we have a two-pronged health organisation in Kenya, public and private -- and what is required is fundamental change, especialliy in effecting national health insurance scheme for all and privatising of hospitals. I know the mention of the word "private" and "health" is not what many people would cherish, but I think it is the solution if accompanied by unversal health insurance in which all are covered. Right now, the strike is hurting the poor who can't afford to go to private hospitals. Those who are capable of paying their way through the private hospitals are unaffected. Also, medical personnel at all levels don't get decent pay. The system is crumbling hence one appreciates what the doctors are going through and the urgency to have their demands addressed. However, while the doctors are right in their demands, because what I see is that they are fighting for public good as well as their own remuneration, I doubt if the goals they want to achieve can be accomplished in the present bureacratized governmental structures. Pay in the public service is never fair. In fact, public service in our situation is meant to serve the powerful who in the public service. The weak such as patients are not a priority. The development of health care infrastructure in support of the poor is at best a nuisance to be tolerated because the powerful travel abroad for treatment. Doctors pay is ranked amongst the lowest of the low! That is what this government is all about! It is about who wields power -- that is why an MP can earn almost twenty times what a phsyician earns, and a judge can earn ten times what a Chief Medical Officer earns, and a Captain in the army can earn almost three times what a doctor earns! It doesn't matter whether it is Kibaki, Uhuru, Raila, Ruto, Kenneth, Karua, Ngilu, Kalonzo, Hassan, etc. It is just the system! The other day Mutunga was seeking helicopters for judges in hardship areas - make no mistake he will get them, but there is no way the government will buy a helicopter to fly a patient in critical condition from Mandera to Kenyatta referral or from Migori to Moi referral. Some sub-districts doen't even have an ambulance! Already 430 million has been set aside from the taxpayer to help judges get mortgages. But make no mistake, there is no way the government can release that money to buy an Xray machine for a county hospital or increase doctor's pay without the mention of a strike! It is painful. And the doctor's cause is Just! It is on the foregoing basis, that I think there is need to look at how the situation can be fundamentally changed so that we have a health care system that gives patients a pride of place and doctors, in deed all medical personnel, earn decent pay and have the tools they need for their work. Privatisation of the hospitals with a national health insurance scheme for all will enable the doctors to have decent pay based on what returns the market provides instead of being clustered under the umbrella of public service whereby return does not match expertise and experience. Privatisation will inject private capital into the health care sector. Investors will develop rural clinics and private hospitals in counties, especially if there is a guarantee that re-imbursements to hospitals will be fair and indiscriminate throughout the country. Consequently, billions being spent by the government in building hospitals and clinics, and in which almost 50% is eaten up by corruption, could be injected into the National Health Insurance Scheme to be used in patient health care, as private investors take up the construction and management of hospitals in a defined and structured relationship. There is a lot of wastage in the government bureaucracy to the extent that even the amount voted for medical services and public health very little goes to patient care services and salaries for medical personnel who toil under extremely challenging circumstances. Fifty years since independence we are talking of two referral hospitals for a population of 40 million! Provincial and District hospitals are in shambles! The health care sector needs fundamental change and this is not going to be achieved under the ambit of centralised and bureaucratised command system micromanaged from Nairobi. A fundamentally structured government/private sector partnership in the delivery of health care services is what will help patients and allow medical personnel to earn decent salaries.
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Post by Luol Deng on Dec 14, 2011 20:09:50 GMT 3
affirmed,
I get your drift, but I don't want the Kenyan style private sector running public health facilities. I'll come back on it later.
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Post by jakaswanga on Dec 14, 2011 20:38:50 GMT 3
Those gentlemen have fallen to the political expediency of these battle hardened conniving geriatrics and dinosaurs called government...to buy time and demoralise KMPDU We are not Demoralised yet Hannali,After I read the 12+ points on your list, I asked myself how serious the Union took them, whether they were a smart PR pitch, because if the striking docs {whom Nyong'o calls interns} are majorly serious, then this is more than a strike in the sense of a labour dispute. These points call for a total overhaul of the whole health-care system in Kenya. This in turn calls for a restructuring of the ministry and her subordinate authorities which runs the business. These things can only be effected if they become government policy. When they are structurally incorporated in subsequent development plans, to the extent of being bills passed by acts of parliament. This thing will and must envisage a national, universal scheme of health insurance. NJAMBA OF JUKWAA IS ALREADY ON TO THIS ON A SEPARATE THREAD. [This would be akin to the resolve of the government at independence when she put down a position paper of literacy for all citizens --even the adults far past school. This is a long haul, and I doubt even the elementary proposals like further education [and availability of research funds with reasonable academic freedom, can be met by this government.] It may therefore necessitate your Unions to take matters into their own hands, and write out the whole programme of a better health care in Kenya for the next decades: your vision 2030! AND THE FUNDING of universal insurance. Querry: KMPDU as a union does not allow nurses and other lower staff in health practice to join, right? Like when university teachers bolted from the union which puts them together with secondary and primary teachers? right? The first psychological hurdle for you docs, will be to treat nurses as equal in this battle to revolutionise health-care. A bridge too far I think for most MBchbs! Or?
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Post by adongo23456 on Dec 14, 2011 21:49:00 GMT 3
2346 Doctors are handing over their resignation to the Kenyan Government on Friday We are tired of being used and spent and having no meaningful work environment hannali, What happened to the idea above. I know it is an extreme end of things but if the budding union and the doctors can build solidarity and offer to quit their jobs mara moja it will send the government to the table in a hurry. It is a tough call because doctors have families to feed, they have mortgages to pay and they have to make a living but quitting government jobs altogether may cause them a lot of trouble but rest assured that two, three years down the line all those doctors will be working in Botswana, South Africa and running their own clinics and living in the dignity they deserve. In fact groups of doctors can form their own partnerships and get some capital together to start private facilities particularly in the smaller urban centres like Kisumu, Kakamega, Nyeri, Mombasa, Nakuru, Eldoret. 10-15 doctors coming together can put together middle level health facilities that could even be more affordable to citizens. Let the ministers go run the public hospitals and lets see how long that goes. Desperate times call for desperate actions.
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Post by merlin on Dec 14, 2011 23:11:32 GMT 3
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Dec 15, 2011 6:00:58 GMT 3
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Post by jakaswanga on Dec 15, 2011 20:44:38 GMT 3
DOCTORS MUST STAND UP FOR HEALTHCARE IN KENYA................ • First we must form our own medical union and leave the one that was led by selfish self servers • Second we move out of our unfavorable bargaining chambers and negotiate our own salaries • Third we explore health economics, why should doctors remain money making machines for others? We don’t even own the hospitals, medical waste management companies, drug manufacturing and distributing companies and many other business opportunities in health .................. The first step however is going to be the toughest: Building a united and powerful organization championing our interests without a compromise or failure We should also bring back the professionalism that made us the envy of the world: punctuality, honesty, hard work, positive attitude, good work ethics, caring, excellent research acumen, constant reading, learning and teaching. ............. Revolution begins at an individual level, let us build unity in our wards, then take it to the departmental level, the hospital, district, region, province and national level Doc, For you at least, this thing is not just another event. So, as I take you uttermost serious, I will continue to engage you in dialogue, even if sometimes negative. Some homework to start with: Standardisation of services between public and private health care. Now it is a two levels-system of extremes. So uniformalisation of quality that the level of care at say Russia would equal or favourably compare to that of [expensive] Agha Khan in Kisumu. The principle here is similar to that in the ministry of education in a mature system. Private and public universities/institutes uphold the same level of academic excellence for them to be registered, licensed and operative in the market. Infact in mature systems, the public universities are usually the Ivy leagues! One only goes private if one did not make the public grade! How can Kenyan doctors [and all in the health service] work to upsolve the difference in quality between private and public hospitals? FUNDING and the organisation of money-flow will be the key factor here. Now, given the medical personel are trained at the same institutes, so individual skill and quality is a constant, arguably, It is not just the government which is not adding up! Maybe you docs too do not add up, that is you are Dr. Jekyls in the private hospitals, and mutate into Dr. Hydes in the public ones. A tale one of one doctor, one monster and one angel in one! A lot of hard self-criticism will be your part in this overhaul you propose!
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Post by hannali on Jan 12, 2012 19:20:05 GMT 3
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Post by jakaswanga on Dec 7, 2016 21:10:01 GMT 3
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Post by jakaswanga on Dec 7, 2016 21:26:04 GMT 3
PROMISES WHICH CAN NOT BE KEPT, WONT BE KEPT The ministry failed to register the CBA at the relevant industrial court to make it legally binding! A trashed MOU! Anyway, TSC folks like yours truly had their 300% rise the other day, but not before we became the laughing stock of the villages last year, when we went months without salary. It was agreed this year there would be no national exams at both primary and secondary schools if there was no deal. With students burning schools, the consequences of this standoff could not be politically calculated. And so the 300%! I don't know how tough Kenyan doctors are. I know how callous they can be, how negligent and base hearted and corrupt. But fighting for what one believes in demands a different definition of toughness. We Walimu have on record what the vile government tried to do behind the scenes to break the Unions, KUPPET and KNUT! --To undermine the leadership, they even sent mpango wa kando pictures sucking off our negotiators to spouses, to to try to break marriages! Na bado! Read more at: www.standardmedia.co.ke/health/article/2000225884/details-of-the-disputed-salary-deal-signed-by-kenyan-doctors-and-nursesAt the minimum pay for a qualified doc now is 40K! During the police vetting the average Mpesa transaction for a traffic cop into the merry-go-round kitty was in the ranges of 500K/month! The sitting allowance of the average MCA is at the best county, still above 120K/month! Yap!
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Post by jakaswanga on Dec 7, 2016 21:38:12 GMT 3
GIVE DIALOGUE A CHANCE AND OTHER LULLABY STORIES yAWA, your excellency, you possess not the cells of the brain we call MEMORY? Here is a jog!
O yeah, Unions always give dialogue a chance before they jump on the strike instrument!
What the ministry did meanwhile was loot 3-5bn, roping in relatives of his excellency to buy immunity! Joseph Kinya (the PM himself) ordering payments direct from supplementary budgets, kinyume cha sheria!
A good pro-bono jog of memory, NO!? Ach, our 300% piece of the national cake is in. It is a feeding frenzy in a Malthusian party! 40% tax revenues goes to debt servicing, the rest may be recurrent expenditure and graft. Investment!? remember fin-sec Rotich's answer on what the eurobond, ostensibly launched to fund investment, did.
I can jog memories pro-bono for those of dysfunctional brain cells!
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