The Minister of Health, Ruth Aceng (pictured) has revealed that there are no funds for the payment of allowances of medical interns and senior house staff in the 2023/2024 Financial Year following the reduction of budget for the Ministry of Health by over Shs75.417bn.
Minister Aceng made the revelation while appearing before Parliament’s Health Committee to present the 2023/2024 ministerial policy statement for the Ministry of Health where she warned that the budget cuts are likely to cripple operations in the health sector.
“Let me also alert members that all the subversions under the health sector were cut including money for interns, so in 2023/2024, we don’t have money for medical interns and senior house officers. There is no subversions to the health service bodies and research,” revealed Minister Aceng.
In the documents submitted to Parliament, the Minister revealed that the Ministry lost Shs75.417bn following revision of their budget and among the most affected items include the allowances for medical interns which item requires Shs40.280 but only Shs8.056Bn has been availed, leaving the biggest chunk of Shs32.224Bn unfunded.
For the coordination of senior house staff, the Ministry had budgeted Shs10.830Bn, but only Shs2.166bn has been availed, leaving a shortfall of Shs8.664Bn, while if Shs4.817Bn isn’t availed in the next financial year, this would affect availability of blood across the country after Government only availed Shs1.204bn out of the Shs6.021Bn that is required.
Samuel Opio (Kole South) asked Government to prioritise the payment of allowances of medical interns describing them as the engines that drive Uganda’s health care system because they are helping to fill the human resource gap.
“If Government can’t provide for the interns, then they must fill the 100% of all the structures of the human resources in the hospitals. But if you look at the total cost of filling them, you need trillions of filling them,” said Opio.
He also cited the cases of Entebbe regional hospital and Kiruddu hospital whose human resource gaps stand at around only at 33% human resource and such gaps are being filled in by the medical interns.
“So more than 50% of the staff aren’t there, it is the medical interns who are filling the gap at the public hospitals. So they are actually a source of labour for medical services in this country. now cutting the budget is going to worsen the situation, we have seen the number of endless strikes, year in year out. We actually thought there will be an increased budget in this coming year,” added Opio.
In the same budget cuts are likely to worsen the current challenge of shortage of drugs in government facilities where Shs14.573Bn was required by the Ministry of Health, but only Shs2.914Bn was availed, leaving a funding gap of Shs11.658bn.
