By Leonard Kamugisha Akida
KAMPALA
Opposition Uganda People’s Congress (UPC) has criticised the Government’s decision to pay all medical interns a monthly net allowance of about Shs1 million, describing it as a piecemeal solution to a longstanding problem.
Health Minister Dr Chris Baryomunsi told Parliament on Wednesday that the Government had resolved the long-running pay and deployment disputes affecting 2,490 pre-interns deployed to 77 accredited internship centres across the country.
Under the new arrangement, all interns in the current cohort will receive Shs1,268,929 per month before tax, translating into about Shs1 million net.
Government also dropped its earlier proposal to pay privately sponsored interns less than their government-sponsored counterparts.
However, UPC said the decision does not address the long-term welfare and remuneration of medical interns.
UPC spokesperson Sharon Oyat Arach said although the decision had eased the standoff that delayed the placement of newly qualified health workers, Government needed to establish a sustainable policy on interns’ welfare and remuneration.
“While we welcome Government’s decision to facilitate this cohort, this piecemeal approach does not solve the underlying problem,” Arach said.
She warned that failure to establish a long-term remuneration policy could trigger similar strikes and industrial unrest in the coming years.
“Without a sustainable long-term policy on interns’ welfare and remuneration, we shall face the same consequences and industrial unrest next year,” she said.
Arach also warned that poor remuneration could worsen Uganda’s brain drain, particularly among health professionals.
“In the next 15 years, Uganda will run short of professional doctors. Labour is highly mobile and it goes where it is best rewarded […] Failure to do so will accelerate brain drain,” she cautioned.
Medical interns have been protesting delayed postings, unpaid allowances and an earlier proposal to differentiate payments between government-sponsored and privately sponsored interns.
Tensions escalated on August 12 when several interns were arrested during protests over the delays. They were later released on bail.
Although Uganda Medical Association president Dr Frank Asiimwe urged the interns to report to their designated internship centres, it was not immediately clear whether all the affected interns had resumed duty by the time of publishing this report.
