The medical profession has historically been portrayed as one of the highly ranked callings, however, this narrative seems to be taking a new twist.
Majority, if not all of us, have responded with ‘I want to be a doctor’ to the first question we were asked about our future career aspirations. Of course, time has displaced us elsewhere – to where we deserve.
The current state of pre-medical interns has made us believe that the lord saved us from the nightmare we would have encountered had we stayed on truck.
Pre-medical Interns have been home for months without being deployed to do their internship, a prerequisite for their certification.
Despite being at school for a longer duration, medical students have to do a mandatory one year internship without which, their degree is rendered useless. This explains their current frustration with their delayed deployment.
The ministry of health has excused self by claiming there are no adequate funds to facilitate new medical interns thus their delayed deployment.
Government has only recently released about 22 billion to cater for some of the arrears of medical interns that were deployed the other year.
For those pending deployment, the suggestion is that they work for free or facilitate their own internship. The permanent secretary to the ministry of health Dr. Diana Atwine has already asked those that can facilitate their internship to apply for deployment.
The story has now changed with the birth of this controversial suggestion. Pre-medical Interns are looking for not just deployment but paid deployment. The hashtags have been amended to read ‘deploy medical interns with pay’.
Much as the pre-medical interns want to be certified, the message remains clear that survival is the end goal.
There has been a misconception that medical careers are poverty alleviating callings. In at least three out of five families, parents want their children to do medical courses in order to improve their status.
It is therefore ironic to imagine that medical graduates, especially those from public universities where majority are on government sponsorship, can facilitate their own internship.
Unfortunately, the plea is no different from that of senior medical doctors. It’s a public secret that Doctors in Uganda are among those dissatisfied with their salaries.
While pre-medical interns protest their delayed deployment, they should reserve some energy for the struggle to raise their salaries after internship will be more bitter.
The permanent secretary to the ministry of finance Ramathan Ggoobi told pre-medical interns on Monday to be patient and wait for government to fulfill its commitment to have them deployed.
The Uganda Medical Association has sent out a clear message to the government that the delayed deployment of medical interns affects health service delivery.
Hope is the anchor of the soul and it is all government has given to pre-medical interns and taken away from patients lacking medical officers to attend to them. Whereas medical interns seem to be alone in the struggle, their delayed deployment affects us all.
