Must health workers first threaten to strike ?
Over the years, the government has often got some medical workers to substitute whenever a section of the health human resources goes on strike. PHOTO/ FILE
What you need to know:
The issue:
Health workers’ pay.
Our view:
The country finds itself with hungry nurses and like they say, a hungry person is an angry one, yet they are supposed to be compassionate instead. It’s time the government planned ahead and ended this vicious cycle.
In the next few weeks, the 527 members of the 11th Parliament will be whistling as they drive off in vehicles worth reported Shs300m each. Yet on Wednesday, members of the Uganda Nurses and Midwives Union (UNMU) downed their tools demanding lunch allowances.
UNMU is demanding that the Shs70b meant for lunch allowances for nurses should be catered for in the 2021/22 National Budget. When this is juxtaposed with the ‘luxury’ of cars, there will be a shout over priorities or lack thereof in the government. But priority is something that has been too big a luxury in this government.
However, while planning is just as lacking, it beats the mind that the Budget, which involves planning throughout its process, is the pain in this deadlock. Over the years, the government has often got some medical workers to substitute whenever a section of the health human resources goes on strike.
While this is always a timely intervention to ensure the system is not jeopardised in the process, it is difficult to see the end game. The vicious cycle of industrial action over provisions that should be the first availed to health workers such as safety gloves and masks have persisted.
Not every demand cast on the economic scale can be met as soon as they come but the history of medical workers and threats of industrial strikes is telling enough. These demands are always genuine. But predictably, the government has always let these health workers down.
Every five years, the government is able to efficiently plan and deliver fleets of cars worth billions of taxpayers money to MPs without any hiccup, but the same government cannot plan for the needs of medical workers even when the funds to cater for are just a minute fraction of what MPs take.
The country finds itself with hungry nurses and like they say, a hungry person is an angry one yet they are supposed to be compassionate.
Could it then be that the big men in government are aware of the accidents waiting to happen because of yawning nurses that they are quick to board a flight to procure treatment abroad at taxpayers expense?
It’s time the government planned ahead and ended this vicious cycle. The taxpayers pay the price in this sickening neglect act.
