Masaka hospital staff ordered to renew tenancy agreements or lose housing

Health workers at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital risk being evicted from staff quarters if they fail to renew their tenancy agreements by end of this month, Daily Monitor has established.

All tenancy agreements are expiring on June 30.

A February 24 internal memo, a copy of which Daily Monitor has seen, states that staff who want to retain their housing units have to reapply before March 31.

“Those who will not have applied by then will be assumed to no longer interested in hospital accommodation and such units will be allocated to other interested staff members,” the memo reads in part

According to the hospital management, all staff who will not have cleared their outstanding rent arrears by March 31 will not be considered for reallocation of staff houses.

Dr Nathan Onyachi, the director  of Masaka Regional Referral Hospital , said the tenancy agreement for all staff is clear that every after three years, the term of occupation expires and they  have to reapply for the housing .

“All those who signed the tenancy agreement are aware that their term  of occupancy is about to expire  and we don’t expect them to complain,” he said in a telephone interview yesterday

Daily Monitor has learnt that many staff have defaulted on payment for more than five months.

Dr Onanchi  said priority for accommodation will be given  to staff working in maternity, accident and emergency as well as operating theatre departments.

Dr Onyachi said they have also received information that some non-staff occupied the houses without following the proper procedures.

“We are going to begin with those ones because  for anyone to reapply for the house, you will have to first show your tenancy agreement,” he added

He said the hospital faces a challenge of health workers who refuse to pay their utility bills which at times leads to disconnection of water and electricity.

Currently, Masaka Regional Referral Hospital has a total of more than 286 health workers , but the hospital can only provide housing facilities to a small percentage which at times affects health service delivery at the  hospital.

A nurse at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital, who preferred anonymity, said most staff rent houses outside the hospital and trek between three  to eight  kilometres to work which affects their daily productivity.

“The senior staff are the ones sleeping in those units, for us we commute from home daily, we ask  government to expeditiously  release funds to complete the new staff quarters,” she said.

Some of the staff quarters were commissioned in 2014 and those under construction will  replace the ones  that were constructed in 1946.

Each of the staff accommodated within the hospital is supposed to pay a monthly rental fee of Shs50,000, meaning the hospital  raises Shs2.7m from the existing 54 housing units monthly.

Law

The Standing Orders of Public Service Section H-B on tenancy states that occupancy of any government housing shall be governed by a tenancy agreement detailing the terms and conditions of the tenancy. The tenancy agreement shall be drawn in consultation with the Government Valuer.

A public officer or any other tenant occupying any government house shall, unless otherwise stated, pay rent. The rent payable shall be determined by the Responsible Permanent Secretary in case of Pool Housing and Responsible Officer in case of Institutional Housing in consultation with the Government Valuer. 

In case the houses are not occupied, government standing orders dictate that the responsible officer rent it out to another public officer in another sector. The rent payable in this case shall be collected in advance on a quarterly basis . 

Additional reporting by Malik F Jjingo