Prime
For how long shall we tell adults to pay doctors well?
Milly Nassolo
What you need to know:
- We need to advocate for the better and timely pay of all health workers.
This week, Senior House Officers (SHOs) went on strike over unpaid allowances for the past four months. It is understood that the SHOs – qualified senior medical doctors who are undergoing postgraduate training to become specialists in various fields – had been promised a monthly allowance of Shs2.5m, a pledge government hasn’t honoured since last October.
Sadly, this comes a few weeks after about 2,000 medical interns threatened to go on strike over delayed pay. The interns in January reported that they had not received their allowances for three months.
It is painful that over the years the public has been asking decision makers to consider good pay for medical professionals so as to improve the quality of Uganda’s health sector.
But as we start to see the fruits of the cries in form of pay rise for some medical workers, decision makers are yet to tame the pandemic of delayed payments which has dragged the sector into endless strikes.
Much as the economy might not be doing well, it is a sign of betrayal to keep approving supplementary budgets for other sectors while not prioritising the health sector.
It is wrong for us to give priority to those who aid politicians in getting elected and letting frontline workers do charity on behalf of a government that collects taxes.
I am not attempting to resent politicians because of their privileges, but it is selfish to only hear their voices when discussing petty issues, but then become silent on matters that involve the critical health sector.
In societies where governments care about the wellbeing of their people, it is irrational for decision makers to spend on luxurious lifestyles at the expense of their poor constituents.
It is time for the adults we voted for to re-think their priorities – luxury cars, welfare and hefty salaries for themselves – in favour of the men and women in charge of the health of their voters.
We must be bothered that Uganda’s doctor to patient and nurse to patient ratio is approximately 1:25,000 and 1:11,000 respectively, which is way below the WHO recommended doctor to patient ratio of 1:1,000.
And one of the leading factors of this anomaly, despite thousands of health workers graduating from our institutions annually, is human capital flight.
In 2014 when government advertised opportunities for 263 health workers to go to Trinidad and Tobago, at least 400 health workers, including senior specialists from government hospitals, applied to leave. One of the doctors who applied to leave at the time said in Ugandan health workers are not taken seriously by government.
It is sad that our leaders overlook the heroism and dignity of the many low-paid and undervalued health workers. And yet effective and adequate pay has been known to be one of the core motivational factors for all salary earners.
We need to advocate for the better and timely pay of all health workers in order to improve Uganda’s health sector.
Government needs to honour its pledge and pay the Senior House Officers what belong to them.
Milly Nassolo is as lawyer and human rights activist.
@Milly_nassolo
