Medical association appeals to gov't for scholarships

Feb 26, 2017

Making the appeal during a press conference held at Silver Springs in Bugolobi on Thursday, Prof. Sarah Kiguli of Makerere University said increasing the number of scholarships will enable more medical workers to specialize in different medical fields.

Medical practitioners under their umbrella body organization have appealed to government to increase the number of scholarships going to post-graduate medical students.

Making the appeal during a press conference held at Silver Springs in Bugolobi on Thursday, Prof. Sarah Kiguli of Makerere University said increasing the number of scholarships will enable more medical workers to specialize in different medical fields.

In addition to the scholarships, she also asked government to start paying post-graduate medical students for services they offer while studying. "We want more medical workers to specialize in different medical fields, but some may not afford to pay for further studies, that is why we appeal to government to increase their scholarships.

"Regarding payment, post-graduate medical students work day and night while studying but they are not paid by government. Sometimes, they pay for the accommodation themselves, government needs to start paying for the services they are providing," he added.

The president of UMA, Dr. Fred Bisso said the association is also grappling with the issue of limited number of medical trainers against the high numbers of trainees.

According to Bisso, every regional referral hospital where interns undergo training is supposed to have a minimum of three specialists like senior consultant, a medical officer for instance in disciplines like surgery, Pediatrics, internal medicine or Obstetrics and gynaecology.

He however said, there are health training centres where there is only one specialist, because of short of supply of supervisors and also capacity to attract and retain the personnel with perquisite qualifications.

 "For medical schools and internship centres to produce a hands-on medical student, they should have at least three specialists to adequately train and supervise the intern, but this is still a challenge," he added.

Though he acknowledged that the resource envelope is limited, he called upon government and other partners to mobilise resources to train more health workers in order to address the challenge of doctor to patient ratio, as well as hire more trainers in the medical field.

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