30 November 2011
editorial
The medical world is in a turmoil, and it will require exceptional skills to calm the storm.
Even before issues raised by doctors in public hospitals who are demanding salary increments of up to 300 per cent have been sorted out, nurses, lab technicians, and others want their salaries raised by a similar percentage.
Can the government really afford to pay these amounts, and even if it could, what ramifications would these payments have on the economy?
It is a sad fact that doctors, nurses and other cadre of medical professionals in Kenya are paid relatively poorly in comparison with their counterparts in southern Africa.
The result is that they have been moving abroad where their knowledge and skills are better rewarded.
If, indeed, a fully trained senior nurse can only expect Sh48,000 at the end of the month, something is seriously wrong.
To make matters worse, the nurses and laboratory technicians are aware of what their MPs earn — more than 150 times as much.
Why should they tolerate this obscene discrepancy?
These issues have to be handled with great delicacy, but certainly, medical personnel have a right to demand better pay.
AllAfrica – All the Time