Mpuuga calls for immediate payment of senior health officers
Mpuuga has called for the immediate payment of the outstanding balances and arrears of the Senior Health Officers who laid down their tools two weeks ago in a strike.
The Leader of Opposition, Mathias Mpuuga, has called for the immediate payment of the outstanding balances and arrears of the Senior Health Officers (SHOs) who laid down their tools two weeks ago in a strike protesting delayed payment of their monthly allowances for three months since October 2022.
According to Mpuuga, who was delivering a statement on the post-recess situation, the health industrial action has severe implications on a critical 70% human resource causing a structural gap for specialists in the National and Regional Referral Hospitals.
“As per the Uganda Ministry of Health Human Resource Strategic Plan 2020-20230, these senior health officers provide an affordable, capable and skilled resource that has been utilized in many hospital clinical models worldwide in the history of medicine,” he explained.
Mpuuga added that parliament is alive to the legitimacy of the action premised on August 2016 and 17th December 2021 where a Presidential Directive was issued that SHOs would with effect from July 2021earn a monthly allowance of UGX 2,500,000.
He, therefore, asked the Speaker of Parliament, Anita Annet Among, to effect all the outstanding balances and arrears of the SHOs so they can go back to work and that the necessary legal and policy framework for their engagement is in place.
In reply to the strike of the SHOs, Dr Diana Atwine, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, last week, noted that the unpredictable number of SHOs that the ministry receives every year has made it hard for the government to plan for them.
She added that they receive a whole list of SHOs and interns that are completely outside the range of the budgeted funds.
