A meeting between Machakos governor Alfred Mutua and the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union held on Saturday to resolve the current standoff in the health sector in the county ended prematurely without any resolution.
According to Mutua, the union officials requested for some few minutes to consult after he reportedly asked the union officials their advice in regards to the 48 hours Mutua had publicly given to doctors to resume work.
"I asked them their advice as concerns the 48 hours I had publicly given to doctors to resume work. I asked them because we were are nurturing a working relationship. They did not give me an answer," Mutua narrated.
"They asked me to give them 5 minutes to consult. I waited for 30 minutes and when I asked for them to be asked whether they were ready to resume talks, I was told they had walked away," he continued.
Mutua says his subsequent follow up through a phone call to the union's secretary general Dr Ouma Oluga to get the officials back to the boardroom proved futile as the officials were already on their way back to Nairobi.