Doctors to get payrise next year - VP

Mar 28, 2013

The Government is to increase the pay for doctors and other health workers across the board.

By Francis Kagolo & Luke Kagiri               

The Government is to increase the pay for doctors and other health workers across the board in the next financial year, Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi has said.


This follows reports of the rampant exodus of doctors from referral hospitals to work in lower health centres where workers got a pay rise this financial year.

The sh49b which the Government earmarked to enhance salaries of staff in health center III and IVs this financial year disadvantaged hospitals as most staff opted for transfers to health centres where there was more pay.

For instance, while a doctor in a health center IV earns sh2.5m, those in regional hospitals reportedly earn sh1.5m. In an apparent measure to salvage the situation, Ssekandi said that doctors and other staff in referral hospitals who had been left out in the first phase of salary enhancement would be catered for in the 2013/2014 budget, which is just three months away.

"The staff in hospitals should concentrate on your work because in a few months' time next financial year, the Government shall take care of your demands including remuneration and staff quarters," Ssekandi said.

He made the revelation while commissioning the newly constructed Mubende Regional Referral hospital buildings over the weekend.

The Japan-funded project which comprises of a new operating theater for both major and minor operations, maternity and male wards, and an outpatient department with a causality unit cost over sh25b.

This is part of the $20m (about sh52b) grant the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) provided for the reconstruction and equipping of Masaka and Mubende hospitals.

Mubende hospital serves the districts of Mityana, Kiboga, Kyankwanzi and Mubende but had been dilapidated with leaking roofs and sagging walls.  

Ssekandi commended the Japanese government for supporting Uganda's health sector and implored local leaders to take good care of the refurbished hospitals.

Reacting to issues of low staffing at the hospital, Ssekandi also promised that the Government would address the problem across the country.   
      
Mubende hospital receives about 300 outpatients and 150 inpatients daily yet it has only six doctors of the required 37, according to its director, Dr. Edward Nkulunzinza.

Primary health care state minister, Sarah Opendi said the ministry would recruit more staff for referral hospitals as soon as the lower health centre III and IVs are covered. Over 6,172 health workers for health centres III, IV and V were to be recruited this financial year although some remote districts failed to attract the required number of staff.

  Mubende district chairman, Kibuuka Amooti decried the absence of staff quarters at the hospital saying it put the lives of workers at risk as many are forced to rent in slums.  He also wants Government to establish a regional blood bank and medical training school at the hospital as is the case with most other referral hospitals.  

 

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