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DAR ES SALAAM, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian doctors on Friday opposed plans by the Kenyan government to hire them to fill the gap created by striking medics in Kenya.
Elisha Osati, the Chairman-elect of the Medical Association of Tanzania (MAT), said they were opposed to the move, emphasizing that they were only ready for the move after the strike ended and not now.
Tanzania's Minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, Children and the Elderly Ummy Mwalimu confirmed that the Kenyan government has indeed made the request.
As the Kenyan doctors' strike enters its 95th day on Friday, Osati said: "MAT is not supporting Kenyan government's plans of employing Tanzania doctors."
According to Kenyan media, the country's Council of Governors Chair Peter Munya announced on Thursday that the Kenyan government has embarked on plans to hire medics from Tanzania, Ethiopia and Cuba in the next three weeks to replace striking doctors.
This development comes hardly a week after Tanzanian doctors through MAT, asked the government to make endeavors to recruit over 1,500 newly licensed doctors who are still unemployed.
At a press conference last week, MAT chairman Obadia Nyongole said for over the past two years, the Tanzanian government has not recruited newly licensed young doctors.
On Wednesday the Kenyan government said it had lost patience with the slow pace of talks to end doctors' strike and ordered that the medics resume duty immediately.
President Uhuru Kenyatta directed county service boards and the Health ministry in Kenya to take disciplinary measures against all doctors who would fail to heed the order to resume duty.
Despite government withdrawing a deal negotiated during the meditation process, the doctors now say that they cannot be coerced and bulldozed into returning to work without inking the negotiated deal, local media in Kenya reports.
Kenya's Health Cabinet Secretary, Cleopa Mailu, has expressed disappointment in the doctors' union for rejecting the offer that had been proposed by the government. Enditem
