Uganda Medical Association (UMA), a body that brings together all qualified and duly registered medical doctors in the country has expressed support for the ongoing strike by the intern doctors.
The association said Sunday that the strike should continue until government heeds onto their demands. Last week on Monday, the intern doctors under their umbrella Federation for Uganda Medical Interns (FUMI) laid down their tools, stating that the government had failed to improve their welfare and the current poor living conditions.
According to a statement that was released by FUMI president, Dr Lillian Nabwire, the interns demand an increment of allowances from Shs 960,000 to Shs 3 million. Now, Dr Richard Idro, UMA president they are backing the interns so as to obtain decent pay and living conditions such that they can have appropriate meals and accommodation.
Idro also wants the parliamentary resolution that was made some time back to increase their allowances from Shs 12 billion to Shs 35 billion to be implemented within this coming financial year because it sought to address all their grievances related to improving their welfare.
"Uganda Medical Association stands with the medical interns and supports their sitdown strike and industrial action. And this is in quest of better pay and living conditions such that they can have half a decent meal, sleep in a decent accommodation as they train and work so hard caring for the rest of us. And we say, the parliamentary resolution meant to increase their pay their allowances to Shs 35 billion and provide only this decent accommodation," said Idro.
According to UMA, there is also an urgent need to review and overhaul all parts of medical training in Uganda because they have realized that some of the institutions for interns do not have all the necessary equipment.
As such, UMA leadership says have since petitioned the Prime Minister seeking to have an inter-ministerial body involving a number of ministers involved in a life of upbringing a medical person to see how it can be done.
They listed the minister of Education, minister of Health, Local Government minister, minister of Finance, Public Service minister, National Planning Authority officials and representatives from all the training institutions.
According to the UMA leadership, there is no coordination between the ministry of Education where the medical interns are trained from, ministry of Health where they are working, ministry of Public Service and Local Government ministry which absorbs them, and the Finance ministry which is supposed to give resources and this has led to the untold poor working environment.
FUMI secretary-general, Dr Faith Nabushawo has welcomed the UMA support and called upon the interns to continue laying down their tools, adding that they have sought an appointment with President Yoweri Museveni who promised to address their grieviances.
"We have hope that when we meet the president, our issues will be addressed. Ministry of Health also promised to involve in the negotiations the relevant stakeholders to discuss the implementation of the parliamentary resolution. As FUMI leadership, we encourage the interns to keep calm and be patient as we stay home until we communicate our next action," said Nabushawo.
The permanent secretary for ministry of Health, Dr Diana Atwine a few days ago revealed that the government has no money to meet the medical interns' allowances before advising them to resume work, finish internship and get better paying jobs.
On September 30, 2019, Museveni directed the Public Service ministry to increase the allowances of the scientists in the country but to date, the directive is yet to be implemented.
The Public Service ministry previously said that they were working to make sure that there is harmonization of all salary structures in various departments of government and so far, the plans are in the offing according to the former State Minister for Public Service, David Karubanga.
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