Pharmacists petition Govt over medical internship deadline
The pharmacists say the ultimatum comes amid uncertainty surrounding the implementation of the National Education and Training for Health (NET4H) Policy 2025, which has sparked concern over the welfare and funding of medical interns, particularly those who sponsored their university education.
Pharmacists have petitioned the Ministry of Health to withdraw a directive requiring medical interns to report to their assigned health facilities by August 14. (Courtesy)
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Pharmacists have petitioned the Ministry of Health to withdraw a directive requiring medical interns to report to their assigned health facilities by August 14 or risk losing their internship placements.
They say many interns cannot afford transport and accommodation to take up their postings.
The concerns of the Pharmaceutical Society of Uganda (PSU) are contained in a petition dated August 12, 2026, and signed by secretary Dr Stephen Lutoti.
The pharmacists say the ultimatum comes amid uncertainty surrounding the implementation of the National Education and Training for Health (NET4H) Policy 2025, which has sparked concern over the welfare and funding of medical interns, particularly those who sponsored their university education.
The NET4H policy introduced sweeping reforms to health training, including pre-internship examinations, requiring trainees to complete a one-year internship before graduation, and reclassifying interns as students rather than service providers.
According to the pharmacists, the changes have raised fears that interns could lose government facilitation despite providing essential healthcare services.
The latest dispute follows the deployment of more than 2,200 medical interns to health facilities across the country earlier this month.
However, PSU argues that many interns, especially privately sponsored graduates, have not received transport or settling-in facilitation, making it difficult for them to report within the stipulated time.
The society wants the health ministry to review Policy Objective 5 of the NET4H Policy, saying interns should be recognised as frontline health workers rather than merely students.
Among its demands, PSU wants Government to provide financial support to enable interns to travel to and settle at their internship stations, withdraw the August 14 reporting deadline, and increase the monthly internship allowance from sh1 million to at least sh2.5 million in line with an earlier presidential directive.
The allowance dispute dates back to 2021 when President Yoweri Museveni directed that medical interns, including doctors and pharmacists, receive monthly living stipends of sh2.5 million following industrial action by health workers.
However, the allowance was later reduced to sh1 million because of budget constraints.
For the 2026/27 internship cohort, government indicated that privately sponsored graduates would no longer receive stipend facilitation, prompting protests from professional associations and the Federation for Uganda Medical Interns.
Reliance on interns
According to PSU, no pharmacists are deployed at health centre IIIs, while only five of the 222 approved pharmacist positions at health centre IVs have been filled.
Regional referral hospitals have filled just 31 of the 126 approved positions, while general hospitals have only 38 pharmacists out of the approved 110 posts.
National referral hospitals, the society adds, continue to operate under outdated staffing structures despite managing the country's largest medicine budgets.
The petitioners say that although about 60% of the health sector budget is spent on procuring essential medicines and health supplies, many lower-level health facilities continue to manage these medicines without professional pharmaceutical oversight.
It adds that public hospitals increasingly rely on supervised intern pharmacists to bridge the staffing gap.
PSU has, therefore, urged Government to recruit and deploy more pharmacists across public health facilities and operationalise the position of district pharmacist, designated as the assistant district health officer in charge of pharmaceutical services under the National Medicines Policy.
Copies of the petition were sent to the Speaker of Parliament, the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Finance, the Attorney General and the Health Service Commission, with a call for urgent dialogue to resolve the impasse before pharmaceutical service delivery is further affected.