Cabinet to decide on medical interns’ fate

Parliament yesterday resolved that the issue of the Ministry of Health failing to deploy all medical degree holders for internship should be discussed in Cabinet. 

The Deputy Speaker, Mr Thomas Tayebwa, following the submission from the Health ministry, the Attorney General and MPs, said the non-deployment of other eligible degree holders should be addressed as an urgent matter. 

“I think we need to give the Minister (of Health in-charge of General Duties, Ms Anifa Kawooya) space to coordinate with the Cabinet secretariat on this matter,” Mr Tayebwa said. 

“Let her take a statement to Cabinet, picking our views, on Monday, then on Tuesday, she appears before the [Parliamentary Health] Committee. So, we give the committee Tuesday and Wednesday and then on Thursday, the committee reports back on the floor,” he added. 

Background

The Deputy Speaker was responding to remarks by Ms Kawooya in which she said she would go back and bring their strategic plan on how they will solve the internship deployment issue “to zero.”

“We shall discuss [this strategic plan] with the Committee on Health, and we come to this August house. This [solving this issue] involves the ministries of Finance, Education and that of Health. It is an issue we must put to an end,” she said. 

According to the statement presented before MPs, Ms Kawooya said the Ministry of Health received only Shs35 billion, money she said is not enough to deploy all medical interns and pay senior house officers (SHOs), specialising doctors working in hospitals as part of their training. According to details from the Health ministry, the money at hand is only enough to deploy and pay 743 SHOs and 1,500 medical interns out of the 2,700 eligible medical degree holders who need internships. The ministry also said they have a limited number of supervisors to handle the medical interns and few hospitals with the capacity to train them. 

However, Mr Tayebwa said the criteria used to select the deployed medical interns is discriminatory. 

“Selecting those on government sponsorship and deploying them [for internship], leaving out those who had been paying for themselves at university (private students), is discriminatory,” he said.

The Attorney General, Mr Kiryowa Kiwanuka, said the Cabinet will come up with policies to address the problem. 

“We need to start thinking outside the box and start debating this issue. If, for example, people are willing to pay for the allowances of these medical interns, I am sure as government, we should be able to make those facilities available if the cost can be met,” he said.

He continued: “Also, for the cost of the other interns, it is not so much, it’s just Shs18 billion... This issue of supplementary budget, it is very easy to say supplementary budget but the money to fund supplementary budget must be found somewhere. Even the fuel refund (that MPs want to get) is an option. Even State House is open.”

Dr Timothy Batuwa, the shadow health minister, said there are more hospitals where government can deploy medical interns. He also called for regulation of medical students enrolling in different universities. 

“Look at possibilities of having private facilities taking up some of these interns for training,” he said. 

Medical internship

The 12-month internship, which is expected to start next month, should be undertaken as a requirement for the new medical degree holders to get their permanent practicing license from their respective professional councils. 

The number of medical interns deployed this year is less than the 1,900 deployed last year. The interns are also essential in bridging the health service delivery gap in a country where the doctor-patient and the nurse-patient ratio is approximately 1:25,000 and 1:11,000 respectively, falling short of the international recommended doctor to patient ratio of 1:1000.