Government has finalized plans to hire health workers to boost the capacity of health facilities around the country, the Uganda Health Commission has said.
"We have planned to recruit 1200 health workers of various categories for the institutions under our jurisdiction," said Dr.Pius Okong, the chairperson of the Health Service Commission
He said they have so far run four adverts for recruitment while other methods for recruitment have included filling of vacancies from reserve lists and Covid validated staff lists.
According to the Health Service Commission, the need for these health workers has been necessitated by the re-designations of some medical personnel, those on study leave, abscondment and retirements.
Dr.Okong said the upgrade of Entebbe , Kayunga and Yumbe to regional referral hospitals has also necessitated that health workers are recruited to fill the vacant positions.
"Some of the health workers will go to regional referral hospitals, national referral hospitals and Ministry of Health headquarters while others will go to the Uganda Virus Research Institute and Entebbe Children hospital. Some hospitals will get 10 or 20 while others will get 50 workers."
Mary Teopista Wanene the Permanent Secretary in charge of the Health Service Commission said during the recruitment, there will be more than 70 medical specialists of different categories.
"These are the medical doctors trained to be consultants in different specialties but we are also recruiting more than 70 medical officers who are first degree medical officers to join public service. We will also have 100 graduate nurses join public service and these mainly consist of nurses and midwives,"Wanene said.
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On specialties, Wanene said there will be consultants, senior consultants, obstetrics, gynecologists, public health pediatrics, and general surgeons among others.
She added that by the end of the exercise, they will have recruited 130 diploma nurses who are midwives but also 50 enrolled midwives and about 70 enrolled nurses who are certificate holders.
According to the Health Service Commission Permanent Secretary, the recruitment exercise kicked off some time back and by August, it will have been finalized.
"We expect that within the next two months, these should have secured their letters of appointment and by September should be at their duty station to access government payroll," Wanene said.
The Health Service Commission chairperson, Dr.Pius Okong however clarified that the 1200 will not necessarily be new but rather some will be changing and upgrading their positions , having already been in public service.
