Kampala- Dec 15, 2021
Doctors under the Uganda Medical Association (UMA) have threatened to withdraw emergency medical services once government evicts medical interns over the ongoing strike.
The Ministry of Health in a statement signed by the Director General Health Services Dr. Henry Mwebesa ordered all striking medical interns across Uganda to vacate hospital premises within one week.
Addressing a press conference at Mulago hospital guest house on Wednesday, the doctors said this act is not only illegal but also a mistreatment and an abuse to the medical profession as a whole.
UMA president Dr. Oledo Samuel Odongo says the association has reached out to their legal representatives, Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) who have since written and asked the Ministry of Health to withdraw the directive of evacuating medical interns, within 48 hours as of 13th December 2021.
“The rescinding of these orders by the Ministry of Health and Director General if not done, will culminate in the addressing of this issue and other related matters through the Courts of Law.” Said Dr. Oledo
Meanwhile, the doctors have petitioned the speaker of parliament seeking intervention in the matter of the ongoing industrial action by UMA.
The association launched the Industrial Action on 22 November 2021 few days after supporting and launching the Industrial Action of the medical interns, on 8 November 2021.
The doctors say the main reasons for the strike was the lack of enough medical supplies and personal protective equipment (PPEs), the persistent poor working conditions and the recurrent poor welfare of Ugandan medical doctors.
UMA has had several engagements with the Government of Uganda in the past since 2017 to discuss these issues and in this year 2021, the association had a meeting with the President of Uganda who gave several directives which are yet to be implemented.
Directives by the president
1. President Museveni directed that a a special committee be formed to oversee the improvement of doctors and health workers welfare and its effect on health services in Uganda.
2. To provide enough medical supplies and PPEs to all hospitals and health centers.
3. To pay the intern doctors 2.5m Ugandan shillings and the medical officers 5 millions per month.
4. To reduce the P.A.Y.E on the salaries of doctors from 30% to 10%.
5. To provide tax free cars to medical doctors, and for the government to provide cars to Senior Consultants as per their contracts.
6. To form a committee to discuss possibilities of compensating families of doctors who died in the Covid-19 epidemic and to pay the school fees for the children of doctors who died in the battle against COVID 19.
7. To pay the 4 billion balance to UMA for medical doctors economic empowerment through small loans.
No commitment
Following their engagements, the doctors say they have found trouble to obtain documentation of the commitment of plans to implement the directives.
Dr. Oledo says they have requested and communicated to the government to work on the immediate demands so that doctors can go back and treat Ugandans as they await for the other directives to be implemented in the next financial year.
Immediate demands by doctors
1. Advertising vacant posts for doctors in government health facilities.
2. Presidential directive such as the one enabling doctors to get tax waivers on purchased cars to be implemented.
3. Presidential directive to increase pay for the medical interns and senior house officers to be implemented since a supplementary budget was already approved by parliament.
4. The critical matter of the compensation to families of doctors who died in the fight against COVID 19, should not be sent to a committee but rather government could instead give a payment plan to this effect. This they say is because they believe as doctors their heroes who died did not get COVID 19 from bars as insinuated by some people, because bars were closed during the lockdown and therefore there is no need to determine or investigate the source of the COVID 19 which killed the doctors, apart from their places of work, the hospitals.
5. The Presidential directive for the economic support to doctors needs to be implemented.
Parliament intervention
The doctors want the speaker of parliament Rt. Hon Jacob Oulanya to urgently put the concerned ministries to task to ensure that the above presidential directives are implemented to bring back the national health security to order and save Ugandans from suffering because of failure to access health services.
They also want parliament to condemn the illegal and unrealistic act by ministry of health to order for eviction of medical interns before they complete their internship.
However, police intercepted the doctors as they matched to parliament to present their petition and arrested some of their leaders including UMA president among others.
The petition was later delivered to parliament by Dr. William Anzo the in charge of Finance and Development at UMA and other association members.
