Kampala – Speaker of Parliament Anita Among has tasked the Prime Minister, Robinah Nabbanja to present a report on the progress of payment of pre-medical interns.
“This report will help us as the legislature to plan better on how much money should be allocated to the health sector to cater for such matters,” Among said during a House sitting on Wednesday.
She urged the Prime Minister to follow-up on the remuneration of 1,900 pre-medical interns who have been deployed across the country as well as 4,000 others yet to be deployed.
“Much as the medical interns promised that they are going to work, they need to be facilitated,” she added.
Background
Over the last year, Uganda’s Ministry of Health has been engaged in a fierce battle of deploying more than 1,500 medical interns for their internship after graduating. However, others who have been deployed complain about unpaid arrears, salary disparities and poor welfare, while fresh graduates still complain of delayed deployment by the Ministry.
On May 15th, the Uganda Parliament directed the Ministry of Finance to release the money required to facilitate the deployment of medical interns by the Ministry of Health.
Still, since then, no action has been taken by the respective ministries, but instead, the Ministry of Finance threatened to scrape off allowance to medical interns, which proposal was rejected by President Museveni.
Recently, government said they were set to clear the arrears of senior house officers and medical intern doctors for the financial year 2023/2024. Finance Minister, Matia Kasaija said that UGX 22 billion would cater for the clearance of past arrears
Meanwhile, Among urged the Ministry of Health to present a statement to Parliament, addressing the shortage of blood in the national blood bank.
Uganda Blood Transfusion Service (UBTS) on average collects only 300,000 units of blood annually below the World Health Organisation recommendation of 450,000 units (one percent of the population)
