The Federation of Uganda Medical Students Associations (FUMSA), through its president, Mr. Boniface Osodi, has expressed elation on receiving the news of the possible reopening of Medical Schools across the country. This news comes after the presidential directive by His Excellency Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni, to officials of the Ministry of Education to liaise and explore the possibility of reopening medical schools in the country.
This directive was made on Friday, last week while the President was reviewing the lockdown measures he had earlier put in place, as a means of checking the alarming increase in Covid-19 infections nationally.
Mr. Boniface Osodi (the FUMSA president) is a fourth year student of medicine at KIU Western Campus and in an interview on the subject, he remarked that; “Speaking for all medical students in the country, it’s a win-win situation because we have been having several meetings about the modalities under which medical schools can be reopened”.
Osodi had earlier, in June, written a letter, in his capacity as FUMSA president to the Ministry of Education and the National Council for Higher Education (NCHE), requesting that medical students in clinical years be allowed to continue with their training owing to the fact that they have the ability to lend a hand in the fight against Covid-19.
He ultimately noted that it would have been much better if the President had been more exact on the actual date for the reopening because the preceding incidental efforts by FUMSA had all ended in sheer futility.
It is believed that the Ministry of Education and Sports will commence liaison with the National Council for Higher Education and other stake holders this week, in a bid to explore the possibility of reopening of all medical schools across the country and the resumption of the ancillary teaching and learning processes within two weeks.
