Medical interns under the Federation of Uganda Medical Interns (FUMI) have announced that they will resume work on Thursday this week.
This comes as Dr. Musa Lumumba, the FUMI President stated that they decided to temporarily call off their spirited strike because the government paid their allowances for the months for September and October 2022.
Lumumba, however, says the payments exempted some of their colleagues at health facilities like Kawempe National Referral Hospital, Bombo Military Hospital, Nsambya, Masaka, and Gulu Regional Referral Hospital.
He says the body is still engaging the government to ensure that arrears of all interns are paid.
“90 percent of us have received our allowances for September and October and let them pay others today so our colleagues can have what to eat. We are foot soldiers in health facilities and now we dealing with Ebola and patients are suffering in hospitals with no one to attend to them yet the reason we chose this profession was to save lives,” Lumumba stated
He, however, clarified that the strike will resume in two months, should the government decline to meet all their demands as directed by President Museveni last year.
Some of the demands include: discrepancies in salaries.
Earlier, the President directed that intern nurses and the pharmacists be paid half the pay of what their seniors are earning.
Currently, a graduate nurse earns 4.4 million shillings while pharmacists earn 5.4 million shillings, therefore an intern in the same position would have 2.2 million shillings and the pharmacists get 2.7 million shillings.
Intern nurses are now earning 1.5 million and 2 million for pharmacists.
“So in good spirit we are calling off this strike hoping that the government will meet our demands in the next 60 days and also come up with a clear plan with timelines to address our discrepancies. Should they not do so , we shall come back and inform Ugandans,” he said.
The interns including dentists, nurses, and pharmacists laid down their tools on November 6 over arrears in allowances and demand for the Presidential directive on salaries to be met by the government.
Compiled by Minah Nalule
