Resolve perennial issues around medical interns

Last month, President Museveni proposed that those who have been sponsoring students in medical schools should take on the onus of sponsoring them to carry out internship, an exercise that is meant to enable them to put the theories picked up in medical schools into practice and also give them a chance to experience the stressful and rigorous nature of the work in the wards.

 Mr Museveni has argued that the government has a lot on its plate. We agree that the government must provide the country with road infrastructure and guarantee our security, but that argument does not sound right at a time when we are talking about increasing the doctor-to-patient ratio and access to quality health care for all Ugandans.

For the record, Uganda is ranked number 133 out of 167 nations in the 2023 ranking of health and health systems of countries worldwide.

Uganda has one of the lowest doctor-to-patient ratios in the world. There is only one doctor available for every 25,000 Ugandans. 

This is way below the 1 doctor per 1,000 ratio that is recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Statistics from the Ministry of Health indicate that 70 percent of Uganda’s doctors are based in urban areas of the country. About 40 percent of nurses and midwives are also based in the urban areas where about 13 percent of the population lives.

This means that up to 87 percent of the population who live in the rural areas and the close to 20 percent of the population that live below the poverty line have serious difficulties in accessing qualified medical personnel and quality medical care.

Whereas Uganda is a signatory to the 2001 Abuja Declaration, which recommended that government should commit at least 15 percent of their total expenditure to health, in June the World Bank released figures indicating that Uganda has been spending only 3.9 percent of its public expenditure on health.

This means that the country cannot achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3, which emphasises achievement of universal health coverage and access to quality healthcare for all.

The situation calls for a rethink on the part of the planners, policymakers and the President too. 

It calls for increased budgetary allocations and increased investments in the health sector in terms of acquisition of equipment and development of a specialised manpower to facilitate increasing the doctor-to-patient ratio and access to quality health care for all Ugandans. The journey begins with resolving long-standing issues around medical interns.