With Uganda’s doctor to patient ratio still an appauling at 1 to 24,000 against World Health Organization recommended 1 to 1,000, some taxpayers propose scrapping MPs cash for cars and spending that money to pay the young doctors who literally run the country’s health system. The Ministry of Health (MOH) has said government’s stance on Medical Internship will not change despite uproar from the medical fraternity, and that the policy which among others scraps allowances for interns will come into force come August.
Completion of this policy dubbed the National Education and Training for Health Policy was first announced in April and officials said it would reform the current training system, improve the quality of health education, and strengthen the transition from classroom learning to professional practice.
This policy that establishes a National Internship Management Framework listing reforms including pre-internship examination for trainees before placement, allowance removal and guidelines on the selection, deployment, supervision, and accreditation of internship sites has been largely rejected, with doctors saying it’s ill-intentioned to literally turn medical interns into slaves.
However, while speaking to a group of charged medical students in a meeting attended by the leadership of the Uganda Medical Association (UMA), Dr Ronny Bahatungire, the Commissioner Clinical Services at MOH said while the removal of payment has been the most controversial, the over 350 pager document has key changes that both the Ministry of Health, that of Education and other stakeholders believe will sanitize the profession.
He said, they established that wrong elements were making their way into the medical course and that while the Ministry of Health is being put on the spot, the idea of eliminating pay was an initiative of the Education Ministry with the integration of internship with the six-year academic duration for the medical course.
The discussion on whether to pay interns or not has gained traction as different sections of the public joined in protesting the policy, some suggesting that instead of ending payment of medical interns, government should scrap giving Members of Parliament cash for cars and pay the money to the group who literally run the country’s health system. Others suggested cutting salaries of Members of Parliament to cater for the interns. The internes were supposed to earn only one million shillings a month. So one MP’s UGX300-plus million car cash can pay 5 intern doctors for five years, meaning 529 MPs’ car cash can pay at least 2,645 intern doctors, yet the plan is to deploy only 2,000 per year.
Currently, medical interns are offered a monthly allowance of a million shillings, down from 2.4 million shillings monthly that was initially agreed following a presidential directive in 2021 that ended several episodes of industrial action by the medical workers.
In 2024 however, while addressing 210 post-medical interns who had just completed a 10-day patriotism and ideological training at Kyankwanzi National Leadership Institute, President Yoweri Museveni said paying medical interns would not be sustainable with almost 2,000 interns deployed at the different placement centers across the country.
“Who pays for the internship? Some people are saying that the government must pay, but I think that is risky because the government would pay if it had money but it doesn’t have enough money since it has got a lot of things to do like roads, security etc. I don’t think it is okay to tie the future of our young doctors with government funding because it may delay or it may not be there,” Museveni said.
However, the controversy of allowances for interns is not just starting to cause now. Dr Frank Asiimwe, the UMA President says over the years, they have been pushing for better conditions for interns and that it’s improbable that his predecessors in the association were consulted and agreed to such changes that literally turn interns into slaves.
He appealed for President Museveni to intervene and stop this policy, warning that as it is now, it stands to not just worsen the existing challenges within the human resources for health but will also greatly increase the cost of the medical course, making it more unaffordable to many and as a result some will turn away. And yet, the country’s doctor to patient ratios are still appauling at 1 doctor per 24,000 patients against the World Health Organization recommendation of 1 per 1000 patients.
However, while this appeal by the UMA president and other opponents of the policy came around the same period Museveni was delivering the State of the Nation address, he did not make any mention of the issue on Thursday afternoon.
Now, Bahatungire advises medical students to read and comprehend the policy as it will start to bite when the next lot of interns get deployed either on 1st or 2nd of August. He noted thatdespite false allegations by some sections of the public that interns will be required to pay internship fees, no such fees have been set-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
