Prime
Government faulted on changing medical internship period
Healthcare. Medical interns at Tororo hospital. They argue that government did not consult them when it changed their internship period from three to six months. Photo by Joseph Omollo
What you need to know:
- The Health ministry had stated in its defence that by the time it made a decision to change the rotation system in April 2018, the 2018/19 interns were still undergraduate students and there was no legitimate expectation to consult them about the structure and schedule of future internship programmes.
The High Court in Kampala has faulted the Ministry of Health for not consulting intern doctors in April 2018 when it changed their internship period from three to six months.
While delivering the ruling yesterday, presiding judge Musa Ssekaana, however, declined to issue any prohibitive orders, saying by the time the intern doctors sought the court’s intervention, the new internship policy was already in place.
“The decision of the Ministry of Health through the acting director of health services was reached on breach of the legitimate expectation of the applicant’s members and was procedurally improper but the said decision was made in 2018 and took effect during the September 2018 internship intake. By the time the applicant came to court on December 21, 2018, the new internship policy had taken effect,” Justice Ssekaana said.
“The decision made would not serve any purpose except that it would guide the respondents (government and the Health ministry) in future conduct of their activities which involve change of policy or systems,” he added.
The interns had under their association of the Federation for Uganda Medical Interns, also argued that the Health ministry issued a memo limiting them from acquiring skills in four disciplines (surgery, obstetrics/gynaecology, medicine and paediatrics), and subjected them to two (surgery and medicine).
In the course of assessing the effectiveness of the internship period, the ministry consulted different stakeholders and came up with some findings.
It discovered that the three-months period did not allow intern doctors reasonable opportunity to adequately be mentored in the surgical and medical disciplines, putting patients’ lives at risk.
Government take
The Health ministry had stated in its defence that by the time it made a decision to change the rotation system in April 2018, the 2018/19 interns were still undergraduate students and there was no legitimate expectation to consult them about the structure and schedule of future internship programmes.
