Medics Rap MPs

By Charles Wendo THE Uganda Medical Association has protested the demand by MPs that government doctors be barred from running private clinics. The parliamentary committee on social services on Wednesday accused medics of siphoning hospital drugs into their private clinics. They demanded for a law that bars medics in government service from running private clinics. But the Uganda Medical Association President, Dr. Margaret Mungherera, yesterday said, “We are protesting in the strongest terms the false accusation put forward by the MPs.” Mungherera said most doctors would resign from government service if they were stopped from running private clinics without being given a living wage. She said hospitals hardly have any drugs and doctors do not have access to the little, so they cannot be accused of running private clinics on hospital drugs. She said though there might be “a few rotten tomatoes,” it was an insult that MPs generalise doctors as wrongdoers. “We have been working almost for no pay. Should they dare give us an ultimatum, 90% of the doctors will move away from hospitals,” she said. Ends