The pre-medical interns who have been on strike have given the government an ultimatum of 24 hours to come up with a clear communication about their deployment and their allowances or else they continue with the strike.

The interns say they have now spent over about year without clear deployments. The leaders of the association of pre-interns voiced their concerns during a media briefing at the Mulago Guest House.

According to the Ministry of Health, the government is mulling a policy review in regard to handling all medical interns. 

Over a month ago, the pre-medical interns held countrywide demonstrations over delayed deployment and the payment of their arrears. They also protested plans by the government to scrap the allowances of interns from private medical institutions.

However, later after a cabinet meeting, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni issued a directive to the Ministry of Finance Planning and Economic Development not to scrap the allowances.

Now, the leaders of the association of pre-medical interns say over 2,000 of their colleagues are seated at home because of the failure of the government to deploy them in health facilities yet there is a huge human resource gap in government hospitals and health centers across the country.

According to Dr. Luswata failure, the government’s failure to deploy them has denied them the opportunity to go further their studies. He said they have reached out to all the concerned authorities but their efforts have been in vain.

Dr Luswata accuses officials in the finance ministry of disregarding the presidential directive not to scrap the allowances of the interns in private medical institutions. He appealed to President to directly intervene in their grievances.

Now the pre-intern medical workers have given the government an ultimatum of 24 hours to address their complaints or else they seek advice from colleagues countywide for their next course of action which may include another strike.

A few weeks ago, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Diana Atwiine said that Cabinet did not take a decision on the fate of pre-medical interns who were supposed to begin their internship on 1st April 2023, pending a commitment from the Ministry of Finance to pay their allowances.

Cathy