President Museveni has directed the Finance Ministry not to scrap payments for medical interns.
Sources in the government, who spoke to the Monitor on condition of anonymity, said the resolution was made in the Cabinet meeting Monday.
Dr Herbert Luswata, the secretary general of the Uganda Medical Association (UMA), told this reporter that he had “confirmed the Cabinet resolution.”
The resolution came hours after police dispersed and arrested some pre-medical interns who were protesting delayed deployment and plans by the government to scrap their allowances.
Among the issues raised by government officials was that the number of medical interns had become too big for government to manage.
“This news has found us here fighting for the freedom of our colleges pending release. We are still at Wandegeya police. God is Great!” Dr David Mugyema, a member of UMA, said Monday evening.
Medical interns are doctors, pharmacists, and nurses who have already graduated from medical school but need to undergo a one-year placement in the hospital to get permanent practising licenses from their professional councils. Some of them said they have been waiting for deployment for the last nine months in vain.
The intern doctors are paid Shs2.5m each month. Their absence, according to UMA has affected service delivery in public health facilities as they carry around 60 per cent of the workload partly because of the few doctors employed by the government.