Joel Ssenyonyi, the Leader of Opposition tasked government to update the country on the status of medical interns
Government has revealed that discussions are still underway to establish how the privately sponsored medical students will be facilitated during their internship period, with Parliament being requested for more time to allow the Executive to handle the matter.
The revelation was made by Dr. Ruth Aceng, Government Chief Whip during the 4th August 2026 plenary sitting, while responding to a question raised by the Leader of Opposition, Joel Ssenyonyi on what the medical interns that have been deployed without their allowances should do.
Aceng noted, “It is also true that the interns who are government sponsored have resources. And they are being deployed with resources, the ones who went on private are the ones who don’t have resources. The Minister for Health raised this issue in Cabinet and he was requested to provide more information because it is not only the interns, but also the senior house officers need resources and to make projections about the numbers that we expect every year. So, he is yet to present again and then he will come with a concrete answer.”
The Leader of Opposition, tasked Government to update Parliament on the proposal to review the current policy, under which privately sponsored medical interns are not funded during their internship, noting that despite making several commitments to provide feedback on whether the policy has been changed, such promises haven’t been honoured yet recently, the deployment of medical interns kicked off across the country.
Ssenyonyi noted, “Most of these medical interns have not reported to their stations. Why? They are waiting for facilitation from the government, some don’t even have transport to go to the far reaching places, let alone settle there and begin to do the work they should be doing. We have raised this matter severally; in fact, I have been seeing the Minister of Health move around different medical facilities and in the middle of the night, who does he find working? Medical interns.”
The Leader of Opposition also expressed reservations on Government’s proposal to end provision of allowances to medical interns noting that initially, they each trainee was being given UGX2.5M a month, but this allowance was later dropped to UGX1Mn, before Government chose to finally drop the issuance of allowances to medical interns, despite the fact that the medical interns provide the bulk of services in Government facilities.
“We need to avail facilitation for these medical interns, there are about 2,000 of them, and for a bare minimum of about UGX1Million. In fact, there was a time when it was higher, UGX2.5Million, Government slashed it to UGX1Million. Government can find this money, without a doubt, so that these interns are deployed, they go and work. They are the ones who do the bulk of the work in our health facilities. Government should give us the feedback they have been promising,” added Ssenyonyi.
The latest development is a buildup of the bad blood between the medical fraternity and Government, after Uganda Medica Association issued a statement on 30th July 2026, protesting the conduct of ministerial inspections being carried out at public health facilities by Minister of Local Government, Balaam Barugahara, describing the exercise as a spectacle, yet hospitals are healing centres.
“We are deeply concerned about the methods employed during recent inspections of health facilities; specifically, the presence of television cameras in clinical areas, the public interrogation of health workers, and arrests ordered before allegations have been properly investigated. Filming patients in wards, maternity units, and consultation rooms without informed consent violates the Patients’ Rights and Responsibilities Charter, the Data Protection and Privacy Act, and Article 27 of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to privacy. A hospital is a place of healing, not a spectacle.
Although the Uganda Medical Association acknowledged the Ministry of Local Government’s commitment to rooting out corruption, absenteeism, and service delivery failures in local government, the Association argued that finding a health worker away from their station proves nothing without first verifying the duty roster, leave records, night-duty history, and on-call arrangements.
“Uganda’s public facilities are staffed at roughly a third of established need—34% against Ministry of Health norms, with diagnostic services at 47.7% and medicine availability at 58.9%. Where a worker refers a patient due to a stock-out or missing test, that is a systemic failure, not corruption. The two must be distinguished. Due process is not optional. Articles 28 and 42 of the Constitution guarantee the presumption of innocence and a fair hearing. Arrests and public humiliation cannot substitute for proper investigation through established Uganda Police, public-service, and professional-regulatory channels.”
