The Uganda Medical Association (UMA) has asked parliament to appropriate Shs4.8 billion needed per month for interns and Senior House Officers’ (SHOs) payments.
The call is contained in recommendations made by the association leadership before Parliament’s health committee on the issue of junior doctors and Senior House Officers’ payment as well as the proposed health budget cuts.
This follows the announcement by the health minister, Dr Jane Aceng on April 5, that there would be a delayed deployment of the junior house officers/ medical interns for the year 2023-2024, after a wait of over 10 months for those who had completed university final exams in May 2022.
Led by their President Dr. Edith Nakku, the medical doctors have demanded that the Ministry of Health deploys and pays all qualified interns in various internship centres right away as per their strategic plan.
Also in the intermediate term; they ask the ministry to re-instate the ‘Medical Officer on Probation’ position in the public service structure which will see an intern doctor earn a salary, instead of an allowance, like it was in the previous years.
Dr. Nakku also urges the health ministry to urgently finalize the Internship and SHO policies in consultation with relevant stakeholders including UMA and Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council.
