Senior medical doctors have decided to go on strike over the failure of the government to pay them for the past eight months.
The medics, who are professionally identified by Government as Senior House Officers, are duly registered with the Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council and are undergoing postgraduate work-study training to become specialists in various specialities of medicine.
The president of the Senior House Officers (SHO), Dr Robert Lubega, said the non-payment of the medics for more than eight months is already affecting their work since they are demotivated.
“Government really needs to look into this issue. These are senior doctors whose work is very crucial because they do specialised work,” he said.
He added: “A typical day of an SHO starts at 6.00 am with ward rounds, many head to theatre and perform lifesaving procedures on patients that they had to prepare the previous day. Evening ward rounds follow with a section doing overnight call duty on a rotational basis.”
According to an SHO Policy brief by Dr. Ekwaro Obuku in 2016, SHOs provide over 63% of the hospitals doctor’s workforce at Mulago and Mbarara Referral Hospitals which was estimated at 1,101,311 patients–doctor consultations & treatment in 2014, (25,000 were childbirths).
As of today, a total of 692 SHOs and fellows are based in Mulago, Kawempe, Kiruddu, Mbarara, Kabale and Mbale national referral hospitals.
These SHOs were admitted under Makerere University College of Health Sciences, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Kabale University and Busitema University while the fellows are admitted under the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA).
The vacancy rate for specialist doctors is 70% which means that the country still needs more specialists.
However, despite providing critical manpower to the hospitals amidst challenges of inadequate medical supplies and sundries, the SHOs haven’t been paid their allowances since November 2022 with some having last received their payment in October 2022.
