A signpost of HoimaHospital
Jane Kyarisima Mwesiga, the Deputy Head of Public Service in-charge of Performance and Service Delivery has expressed concern over the untamed dual employment among health workers employed by the government.
While the government has since enhanced salaries for health workers following a series of strikes and complaints, Mwesiga says they have so far found no value for money arising out of salary enhancement.
Doctors’ salaries were revised in the financial year 2018/19 raising pay for medical consultants to about 12.7 million shillings/month and senior consultants or specialists’ salaries to 17.4million shillings/month.
However, Mwesiga says despite this pay, there is wide outcry that senior specialists who are the highest earning health workers are never in hospital.
She was speaking at the launch of the Ministry of Health Client Charter and Health Service Delivery Standards that are supposed to be used as a guide in service delivery until 2030.
The standards spell out the minimum level and quality of services that a government institution is expected to provide at each level of care right from the village from a Village Health Team to the highest level at the national referral hospital. The standards book also describes the expectation on how services should be delivered and within what timelines.
Similarly, the Client Charter details the rights and obligations of users while seeking services and a feedback mechanism showing how one can reach out with feedback or complaints about health workers and or inquiries about healthcare management.
Commenting about this development, Permanent Secretary Dr Diana Atwine says while the ministry has this universal charter, hospitals need to come up with their own versions stipulating exactly how they are supposed to relate with health service seekers.
Atwine said both the health service delivery standards and charter are being launched at the right time when they are moving on cracking down on consultants who continue receiving salaries and yet spend most of their time moonlighting in private health facilities.
These standards come after the latest Auditor General report released recently exposed gaps in health service delivery showing that hospitals like Mulago National Referral Hospital are operating with only thirty- four percent of the staff they require considering the workload. The report showed some specialties like critical care had gaps of up to 90%.
But, Atwine says, despite the perennial push for recruitment, this alone without a mechanism to measure how much output these specialists offer and make them account for their time, nothing much will change in terms of access to quality and timely health services.
Meanwhile, according to Kyarisiima, the new standards are set to be used to measure the performance of permanent secretaries with plans to also conduct an assessment of citizen satisfaction while seeking health services in the public hospitals.
