Pre-medical interns arrested while protesting late deployment

A group of pre-medical interns Wednesday stormed the Ministry of Health offices at Lourdel Road in Kampala, demanding answers on their delayed deployment.
The group was first intercepted at Makerere University College of Health Sciences at Mulago by Wandegeya Police Station and some of them were arrested.
Those who survived arrest proceeded with the march to the health ministry. However, the police also intercepted and some were arrested from the ministry's gate before they could go inside.
“There is nowhere we can go without internship certification. I regret the day I made up my mind to choose this course which I thought would save me and my family but rather causing distress at this time,” one of the pre-medical interns said.
The delay in deployment, according to the pre-medical interns, not only causes distress and frustration, but also affects their career goal and academic progress.
“The mortality rates in the hospital have also increased because of the current number of doctors there. We the medical interns carry a biggest percentage of workforce in these hospitals, where is the government's priority seriously?” Another pre-medical intern asked.
Health ministry speaks out
The Health ministry’s spokesperson, Mr Emmanuel Ainebyona, said they are still waiting for official communication from the Ministry of Finance on when the funds would be released.
However, he added that some parents of pre-medical interns approached Dr Diana Atwine, the ministry’s permanent secretary, requesting to be allowed to commence internship at their cost to avoid further loss of time.
“The Ministry of Health has observed that the delayed deployment of the interns has distorted the internship circles given that there are other students who are about to graduate from various medical schools,” Mr Ainebyoona said.
“It is against this background that the ministry requested the medical interns who in the meantime can afford to apply for deployment in the internship centers of their choices,” he said, adding that they would be reimbursed if the finance ministry avails the funds.
Dr Herbert Luswata, the secretary general of Uganda Medical Association (UMA) in response to the Ministry of Health statement said, “To have interns who can afford to pay for themselves to apply and be deployed to facilities of their choice while those who cannot afford be left out for the second year running as the Ministry of Health proposes is extremely dangerous, discriminatory, not well thought through but will yield inequality among the future health workers and will affect quality of service and outcomes of treatments.”
Dr Luswata added that “the planned discriminatory deployment” may also result in a drop-in the standards of ethical practice including extortion by the interns as they would be looking at their survival.