KMPDU Threatens Nationwide Strike Over Unresolved Issues
The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists, and Dentists Union (KMPDU) has vowed to launch a statewide doctors’ strike.
This follows the Kiambu County and National Governments’ refusal to address the ongoing Kiambu physicians’ strike.
Hospital activities in Kiambu County have been halted for the previous 55 days after doctors turned off their equipment.
They highlighted a lack of promotions, harsh actions against professionals who expressed concerns, and insufficient medical coverage.
In a news event on Monday, July 21, KMPDU Secretary General Davji Atellah stated that the nationwide strike will represent the Union’s solidarity and togetherness.
🔴 On Thursday July 24th we will launch a full scale demonstration. We are withdrawing all interns posted to Kiambu County and suspending further deployments. If this crisis is not resolved immediately, we will escalate the Kiambu strike into a nationwide industrial action.… pic.twitter.com/RFyb9dHv6H
— KMPDU (@kmpdu) July 21, 2025
Atellah also claimed that the Union will organize a “mega” rally in Kiambu town on Thursday, July 24, to protest the government’s inability to resolve the medics’ issues.
According to the union, despite efforts to engage in substantive discussions with the county government to develop methods to end the strike, no action has been made.
Atellah says that this decision damages the dignity of the county’s doctors and patients.
“This strike is for the dignity of the doctors and the dignity of the patients in the county,” Atellah said.
“Today marks day 55 of this strike, and we are not seeing an end anytime soon, because the county government has decided to be unreasonable.”
“As a union, we don’t act as fragmented entities; we act as a union, and when a doctor is frustrated in Kiambu, it does not sit well with a doctor in Mombasa and Kisumu, and therefore, we are having plans to escalate this strike to a nationwide strike,” he added.
Atellah has also urged the Health Cabinet Secretary, Aden Duale, to evacuate all 150 medical interns from Kiambu.
He emphasized that the government’s inability to fund health services in Kiambu will limit the interns’ ability to learn advanced health skills.
“We would like the health minister to ensure that all the interns in Kiambu county, the cohort of 2024/2025, are withdrawn immediately because there is no way we will say that we have intern doctors in Kiambu and yet the county government cannot support the services,” he added.
The statement comes two months after the Kiambu county government announced on May 28 that it had begun the process of terminating striking doctors, accusing them of risking patients’ lives.
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According to Elias Maina, a County Executive Committee Member for Health, the county has already fired an unspecified number of medical personnel.
Maina stated that the county had invested a significant portion of the Ksh8 billion yearly county budget in the healthcare sector.
He emphasized that the investment must be matched by accountability among healthcare staff.
“We have started taking action against doctors who failed to report to work,” Maina said.
“A headcount is ongoing to establish those who absconded from duty, and they will be replaced immediately with equally qualified professionals.”
KMPDU Threatens Nationwide Strike Over Unresolved Issues
