Hope Mafaranga
29 June 2009
Kampala — A project to construct houses for health workers is to start soon, the health minister has said. Dr. Steven Mallinga said the Government had secured a $600m (sh1.2 trillion) loan from the World Bank to roll out the project countrywide.
Mallinga added that the ministry would also use some of the money to rehabilitate dilapidated structures. He was on Friday speaking at the launch of routine counselling and HIV/AIDS testing at Buhinga Hospital in Fort Portal town.
Mallinga disclosed that salaries for nurses and doctors would be raised. "I will not accept to continue losing health workers to other countries due to poor pay and poor standards of living, while I am still the minister," he vowed.
Mallinga said the ministry was in the process of scraping comprehensive nursing schools and advised nurses to upgrade to become midwives and clinical officers.
"We will decrease the number of students in nursing schools and set-up clinical training schools where we can get better quality workers," he said.
The medical superintendent, Dr Charles Olar, said the hospital was overwhelmed by the large number of patients. He explained that the hospital receives 800 patients daily.
"The number of patients continues to increase due the failure of health centres IIIs and IVs," he noted.
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