Joseph Mazige and Cissy Makumbi
14 October 2008
Gulu — The government plans to increase salaries of medical workers, Health minister Stephen Mallinga has said.
Dr Mallinga said the move will also improve the working conditions of medical workers as a means to counter the exodus of the health professionals.
"I have seen many of our doctors in the southern part of Africa where they run for better pay," the minister said on Saturday at the closure of a medical eye camp at Gulu Referral Hospital.
Dr Mallinga acknowledged that salaries for doctors and nurses are still small but added that efforts were being made to ensure the professionals are highly motivated.
"Our standard of training is the best. We should be able to retain our doctors to serve the population," Dr Mallinga said.
He said there are 250 Ugandan doctors in South Africa alone, and 30 in Lesotho.
The minister said the decentralisation (at district level) of the health sector was another evil in the motivation of the health workers.
"We are now saying let us take them back to the centre (central government) because I have seen Acholi nurses working in Acholi region. This is not good," the minister said.
He said with decentralisation, areas like Karamoja that have not produced nurses and doctors would not access medical services.
The minister said government will soon address the issue of housing which is one of the major problems faced by the health sector.
The eye camp, funded by Standard Chartered Bank and Sight Savers International, saw 228 people operated of eye cataracts and trachoma related complications.
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