The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Why bringing them in a hostile environment may not solve the problems of a malfunctioning healthcare system
COMMENT | CISSY KAGABA | The recent rather interesting proposal by the government to hire Cuban doctors who would earn Shs5.4 million a month has attracted divergent views. There has not been sufficient stakeholder engagement on this issue, and this could partly explain the cold feet publicly developed by the Uganda Medical Association (UMA), who might have “tickled” government the wrong way during their recent standoff over wages and working conditions and possibly prompted this preposterous proposal from government.
One wonders at which point the government realised it has a shortage of medical specialists, considering the same does not appear in the Health Sector Strategic Plan.
Cuba is ranked highly for the friendliness of her people. However, if its doctors arrive in Uganda amidst this “animosity”, they likely to choke on and be bogged down by intrigue, office politics, language barrier, cultural differences. These constraints, which as per the default settings configured already by the opposition of medical professionals, will make it difficult for the doctors to do anything useful. It is frustrating working in a country where one is not welcome; worse still by your fellow professionals.
UMA has valid concerns which should have been addressed even before the government went public with this proposal. The medical professionals’ argument on wage differentiation, which are unfair and fall short of the World Health Organisation Code of Practice on the Recruitment of International Personnel adopted at the 63rd World Health Assembly in May 2010 to which Uganda is a signatory. Much as the code is a voluntary instrument, it requires that physicians who migrate be paid the same as domestic physicians of the same rank. Basic human resource management principles should inform the decision makers that it is unfair to pay these visiting physicians, some of whom may be lower in rank than our eminent senior consultants, a higher salary than our own whose persistent cry for better wages has led to cat and mouse games between the state and the medics.
A number of health centers do not even have the basic facilities and supplies to handle and treat patients. It is not surprising therefore, that the private sector is booming because they have modern diagnostic machinery not found in government facilities. Bringing in Cuban doctors may not solve the issue unless the Cuban doctors come with a magic wand to activate a malfunctioning healthcare system.
The government should address issues that cause medical specialists to shun government health facilities and instead opt for their private clinics. Moonlighting by some medical officials is caused by inadequate pay and creating a special package for foreigners over our own trained doctors is absurd.
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Cissy Kagaba is from the Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda (ACCU)
