President William Ruto on Sunday April 7, 2024 urged the Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) to suspend the doctors’ strike.

Speaking during a church service in Eldoret, President Ruto urged the doctors to accept the government’s offer, saying that the government has no funds to meet their demands.

“I know we have a situation in our country with doctors and medical interns, I want to tell them that it is important for us as a nation to agree that we must live within our means.

“We cannot continue to spend the money we don’t have, now I am telling our friends the doctors that we care about them. We value the services they give to our nation but we must live within our means.

“The resources we have are only sufficient to pay Ksh70,000 for medical interns, it’s not a salary, it’s a stipend for only one year then they will be employed,” said President Ruto.

The president made the remarks 22 days after the doctor’s strike started countrywide.

This is after doctors in different parts of the nation held demonstrations, demanding that the government implement their collective bargaining agreement(CBA) and absorb interns, among other key grievances.

On the other hand, Head of Public Service Felix Koskei on April 3, 2024 announced that the government has secured budgetary support of KSh2.4 billion to facilitate deployment of medical interns.

In a press statement, Koskei said all medical interns should pick their deployment letters from the Ministry of Health starting Thursday, April 4.

Koskei is also the chair of the Whole-of-the-Nation approach committee comprising of various stakeholders in efforts to resolve the health crisis.

The Head of Public Service, who spoke on behalf of the national government, further said all salary arrears accrued by the national government in line with the 2017/2021 CBA had been cleared.