Over 1,700 medical interns across Uganda have vowed to lay down tools next month if their allowances are not paid this month.
The interns claim that they have not received their allowances for three months now.
According to Dr. Leonard Mutebi, the head of medical Interns in Uganda, the Ministry of Health keeps promising them the allowances will come but nothing has come yet up to now which is why they are laying down tools and will stop working if the allowances are not paid by end of this month.
Dr. Mutebi says medical interns, who include doctors, pharmacists, and nurses, are the engines of public health facilities.
The impact strike will have on health facilities is overwhelming because the interns are the front liners and the majority in these health facilities.
” We receive patients before seniors, we stabilize patients before seniors come in as he doubts few remaining staff and patients will be able to receive the services they ought to in our absence,” Dr. Mubiru said.
The medical interns said they don’t have money for rent and can hardly feed and transport themselves to and from the health facilities
The medical interns are not provided with meals and other day-to-day activities that require money according to Dr. Kigozi Edwin, the head of the medical nurses.
He added that they need their allowances because the internship is a full-time engagement and some of them are the family breadwinners but Dr. Musa Lumumba, the president of the Federation for Uganda Medical Interns (FUMI) says the Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary, Dr. Diana Atwiine, told him the allowances were paid last Thursday.
© 2022 – Forsige Media - All Right Reserved. Designed and Developed by Qlute