1,000 doctors jobless despite understaffing
The deputy executive director of Mulago Hospital, Dr Rosemary Byanyima (left), with other nurses and then Minister of State for Primary Healthcare, Dr Joyce Moriku, during a visit to the facility on November 26, 2020. PHOTO /DAVID LUBOWA
What you need to know:
The Health ministry says it is embarking on a recruitment exercise as part of efforts to address the manpower shortages and work overload.
The Uganda Medical Association (UMA) has revealed that at least 1,113 doctors remain unemployed despite acute understaffing in the country’s health facilities and a heavy workload wearing down the few medical doctors in employment.
UMA is an umbrella organisation that brings together doctors.
Dr Richard Idro, the president of UMA, said in a statement yesterday that 3,124 of the 5,247 doctor posts in public service are vacant, adding that the problem is much bigger at consultancy and senior consultancy levels where 75 per cent of the jobs are unoccupied.
“Yet Uganda produces 500 young doctors and 150 specialists a year… our health system is starving in the presence of plenty what and irony. Uganda is the only country in East Africa with more (government) ministers than senior consultants,” Dr Idro said in a statement.
He added: “The doctors and nurses currently employed in these posts have worked through two lockdowns, are tired and exhausted, the mental health strain is difficult to imagine.”
Staff shortage
The UMA statement comes against a backdrop of perennial complaints of staff shortages. The 2019/2020 Annual Health Sector Performance report indicated that public health sector staffing level against the approved posts declined to 73 per cent (47,932/65,271) in the financial year 2019/2020 from 76 per cent the previous year, which is below the Health Sector Development Plan’s (HSDP’s)target of 80 per cent.
Uganda has registered more than 93,000 Covid cases with at least 2,632 recoveries.
Last month there were more complaints about inadequate manpower on the ground amid an increase in the number of Covid-19 infections that were being registered.
However, Mr Emmanuel Ainebyoona, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Health, said the ministry has embarked on a recruitment exercise as part of efforts to address the manpower shortages and work overload.
“We are recruiting over 1,000 and we have so far through the Health Service Commission recruited about 564. In the (recent) advert we are looking at over 700 health workers. We have also recruited another 56 (highly specialised cadres and anesthesiologists) with support from the World Health Organisation (WHO),” Mr Ainebyoona said.
He further revealed that another 50 workers are to be recruited under a programme funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Mr Ainebyoona, however, pointed out that it has been hard to attract critical care specialists like intensive care nurses and anestheolgists. Only 6 out of the 108 targeted persons in that cadre of workers had been got.
