Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) has demanded alignment of labour laws and Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) guidelines amid uproar over licensing and employment of foreign doctors.

The union says the welfare of doctors in the country has been neglected for far too long, declaring that the dignity of the Kenyan doctor is not for sale.

Speaking on Thursday, January 8, the medical practitioners said more than 3,000 foreign general practitioners have been licensed to practise in Kenya over the past four years.

“We will no longer tolerate the systematic undercutting of professional fees and labour standards in the name of profit. Every doctor practising on Kenyan soil, local or foreign, must be employed under dignified, transparent and lawful contractual terms,” said Davji Atellah, the secretary general.

The union insists the medical profession in Kenya has been treated as a frontier for profiteering at the expense of human dignity, professional ethics and lawful labour standards.

“Today, we declare unequivocally: the era of treating doctors as cheap, disposable labour is over,” Atellah said.

The union has launched a comprehensive, nationwide enforcement campaign to ensure 100 per cent compliance by both public and private health facilities.

Facilities that fail to comply face the full weight of KMPDU’s industrial and legal collective action.

The union’s move follows a directive by the Ministry of Health mandating the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council (KMPDC) to conduct a comprehensive review of all foreign medical practitioners operating in Kenya.

On Wednesday, Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale announced that Kenya will prioritise the licensing and deployment of qualified Kenyan health practitioners before considering foreign doctors, insisting that Kenyans trained using public resources must be given first priority.

“No country worldwide has developed a sustainable health system with a foreign health workforce before considering the routine licensing of foreign doctors and other health professionals,” he said.

KMPDU accuses private facilities of employing foreign practitioners not to address genuine skills gaps but to exploit them.

“By paying wages far below those stipulated by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission and negotiated Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs), these facilities have institutionalised a system that can only be described as modern-day slavery,” Atellah said.