The Deputy Speaker Anita Among (pictured)has told off a section of some Opposition lawmakers who had called on Parliament to suspend its sittings until Government rescinds its decision to fire all intern medical doctors involved in industrial action, saying Parliament has no plans of fulfilling their whims.
“It is a concern for everybody, that issue of doctors will be handled, we don’t have to dwell so much on it. I mean, should we strike as a parliament, parliament is a place that should make decisions for this country, good or bad so we can’t strike here by not sitting because there is a strike somewhere,”Among said.
She made the remarks in response to a request by Atkins Katusabe (Bukonzo West) during plenary sitting who inquired whether Parliament was proceeding right to conduct its business, without being bothered about the impending crisis in Uganda’s health sector after the Ministry of Health fired all intern doctors involved in industrial action.
Katusabe informed Parliament of the numerous calls he had received from his voters in Kasese districts with patients stuck in Mulago with nowhere to go, and are in critical condition yet there are no doctors to attend to them because the medics have been fired.
He said, “Everything else can wait but not the health and lives of our constituents. If we can’t stand for those who don’t have the opportunity to be heard, then I think personally, I am losing the relevance in nation building. Would we as parliament be procedurally right to continue with business as usual when we have a crisis knocking on our doors?”
Katusabe asked the Deputy Speaker to rein over the Ministry of Health and direct the institution to rescind its directive to fire intern medics in order to come to the rescue ailing Ugandans.
“I ask that within two days you direct the Ministry of Health rescind its decision and recall these decisions back to work because they aren’t asking for too much. When we do nothing, it is professional terrorism we are targeting professionals, we are down in history as the only country that has ever suspended medical doctors in the history of the world. And I don’t think that is the history that we would be proud of.,” said Katusabe.
However, Solomon Silwany (Bukooli Central) called out Katusabe for sneaking the matter of striking intern medics into Parliament, saying he shouldn’t question how Parliament is proceeding with its business, but use his privilege as lawmaker to raise the matter.
“The procedure is that when you stand on a procedural issue, you should talk about something happening in this house. Would it be in order for a member to keep raising something that is very important but brings it as procedure when we are talking about other matters? Yet he has an opportunity to bring it as substantive matter,” said Silwany.
It should be recalled that last week, Henry Mwebesa, Director General Health Services at Ministry of Health issued a letter ordering all directors and medical superintendents to ensure all striking medical interns vacate the hospital premises to pave way for another lot of medical students, after they refused to end their industrial strike.
“All those who went on strike will find their own way of completing their second rotation in order to be signed off,” wrote Mwebesa.
The Ministry of Health’s directive rattled the public, prompting the current medical students to decline replacing the their striking colleagues saying, the issue they are protesting are vital.
It wasn’t long before through Asaph Owamukama and John Baptist Ssenyondwa announced that the Senior House Officers had also joined the strike and limited their services to emergency cases noting, “We also condemn in the strongest possible terms the egregious decision of the top brass at Ministry of Health to suspend the current intern doctors and strongly advise them to rescind their draconian directive ASAP.”
The Uganda Medical Association announced their industrial strike on 6th November 2021 demanding the Ministry of Health to fulfill the pledge to increase the payment of intern doctors from current Shs700,000 to Shs2.5m monthly, table before Parliament a supplementary budget to a tune of Shs7Bn to improve the working conditions for both interns and doctors, provide personal protective gears, health insurance, and reduction of doctor’s payee salary taxes from 30% to 10%.
The Medical Association is demanding that the 59 families of the doctors who died of covid be compensated, and also Health Service Commission to step up on recruiting more doctors and promotion of those in service.
