More than 1,700 medical interns across the country have vowed to lay down tools next month if their allowances are not paid this month.
The development comes after the interns claimed that they have not received their allowances for three months now.
Dr Leonard Mutebi, the head of medical Interns in Uganda, said they will stop working if the allowances are not paid by end of this month.
“The only option will be laying down tools because the Ministry of Health keeps promising us the allowances will come, but nothing has come yet up to now,” Dr Mutebi told this publication yesterday on telephone.
Medical interns, who include doctors, pharmacists, and nurses, said they are the engines of public health facilities.
“We are the front liners and the majority in these health facilities. We receive patients before seniors. We stabilise patients before seniors come in. The impact our strike will have on health facilities is that without medical interns the work is overwhelming for the few remaining staff and patients don’t receive the services they ought to in our absence,” Dr Mubiru said.
The medical interns said they can hardly feed and transport themselves to and from the health facilities.
“We don’t have money for rent or feeding because medical interns are not provided with meals and among other day-to-day activities that require money,” Dr Kigozi Edwin, the head of medical nurses, said yesterday.
Dr Kigozi added that they need their allowances because the internship is a full-time engagement and some of them are the family breadwinners.
However, Dr Musa Lumumba, the president of the Federation for Uganda Medical Interns (FUMI) yesterday said the Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary, Dr Diana Atwiine, told him the allowances were paid last Thursday.
“That is the information I got from Dr Atwiine that they have paid allowances so it will take about three to four working days for the funds to reflect on our accounts,” Dr Lumumba told reporters yesterday.
He added: “So we are waiting for Tuesday [tomorrow] to see if hospitals have received money, so if by Tuesday the money is not on our accounts, we shall be in position to make some professional noise.”
Ms Prossy Nakyanzi, the speaker of the Intern Pharmacists of Uganda, said they have so far had talks with the Ministry of Health. “So it is diplomacy at the moment,” she said.
Mr Emmanuel Ainebyoona, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Health, said, “…if the medical interns haven’t been paid, they will be paid because the quarterly releases for the third quarter just came in so their allowances are being processed.”
Medical internship is a one-year training that post-university graduates of Medicine and Surgery, Pharmacy, Nursing and Midwifery take after completion of their bachelor’s degrees.
The training is done under supervision and a certificate is issued on completion. Thereafter, one can apply for a medical licence to practice in the country as a professional.
This is not the first time medical interns are going to go on strike or even threaten to go on strike over delayed allowances or demands for salary increment. The strikes happen almost every year.
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