We need a permanent solution to medical interns’ woes

You are not on social media if you have not collided with either of these two comical phrases: “Eh..Eh.. my lord, I wonder” or “Maan! Olemwa”.

It is actually at this material time that I feel the mother of all temptations posturing me to walk to the top of Mapeera building; and sequentially shout out both of these phrases at the apex of my voice. Of course, not for the obvious reasons like the unmanageable fuel price struggles or the nationwide “nsenene” drought, but rather for another comparably serious issue of the country’s medical interns. 

The director of Health services, Dr Henry Mwebesa, in a disappointing and yet unsurprising move, fired all the medical interns. The graduate medical doctors on internship were ordered to vacate the hospital premises if they weren’t willing to call off their ongoing industrial action. Technically, they were being ordered to get back to work even when conditions that instigated their strike had not yet been addressed.  In a strangely disturbing mix of events, the director comfortably chooses to resolve the emerging and serious concerns raised by the medics by postponing them.

In his letter to the medical superintendents, with an unsaid but yet underlying tone of “you can now go and hang”, the director literally informed the interns of a new lot of supposedly ‘roaming’ pre-interns who can possibly work under any conditions, including those that the majority of the current medics are publicly confessing to fail.  

To any reasonable country man or woman, this is an issue that should rise the eyebrows. Not only because we have an abnormally high patient to doctor ratio, but also the risk at hand of converting this country into a “cow-ntry”.  

We should never at any one time resign to a system that runs the public service like a private cattle ranch. The idea that one day a director fire workers who are asking for a bare minimum, is an annoying joke. We should by all means resist the temptation of normalizing this vice. This sort of power hegemony could start from the health sector, but as day follows night, it will be in the education sector. 

All directors and line ministers should know that we can’t choose to resolve a challenge of growing finger nails by cutting off the fingers. The moment we normalize this style of conflict resolution, we strongly risk having our heads cut off just because the hairs are growing long.  

At this point, all we need is a permanent solution to the medics’ woes.  The unfruitful and endless pledges that serve a purpose similar to one of postponement hunger should stop; and a convincingly comprehensive strategy arrived at.

And definitely, that is a solution that addresses the interns’ concerns. 

Derick Muloogi, Nawaikoke, Kaliro District