While holding a press briefing on Thursday, the senior medical officers, also known as medical officers with a special grade, say they have been under looked for long and continue to earn little pay while their immediate superiors get a lot more.
Senior medical officers to stage full-blown strike on Monday
Medical Officers Special Grade have revealed that they will have a fully fledged industrial action starting on May, 9, 2023 at 11:00 PM should the gov’t fail to meet their demands.
While holding a press briefing on Thursday, the senior medical officers, also known as medical officers with a special grade, say they have been under looked for long and continue to earn little pay while their immediate superiors get a lot more.
One of the doctors, Dr. Ismail Mwesigye, a former surgeon working at Mulago National Referral hospital said the government has up to Monday to include their grievances on the order paper. They demand that Parliament passes a budget of 21 billion shillings for the Financial year 2023/ 2024 to cater for their salaries.
Senior medical officers to stage full-blown strike on Monday
He says they are also demanding that they be upgraded from ‘medical officers with a special grade’ to ‘associate consultants’
“We are giving government room to ensure that this issue hits the order paper in cabinet on Monday. If cabinet doesn’t meet our demand, we shall fully lay down all tools come May 09, 2023. It creates a lot of pain being underpaid, demeaned and marginalized. We do a lot of work, we train specialists ,medical doctors yet we are grossly thin on ground. We put our lives on the line and therefore must be looked into,” he said.
Dr. Iren Asaba Mugisha, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Mulago National Referral Hospital says the promotion process for special-grade medical officers is slow, with the government only promoting medical officers after the retirement or death of a senior consultant in a particular hospital.
“We have colleagues who have been serving as medical officers special grade who would have been promoted three years after experience but have served for over ten years. We are calling on the government to accelerate these promotions because we cant be called this and they are giving us peanuts,” he stated.
Dr. Robert Lubega, the National leader of senior house officers, has pointed out that the 11 million shillings demanded by senior medical officers are small compared to what is paid in private hospitals, what the government looses to corruption annually and that this has led to several senior doctors leaving the country for better opportunities.
Senior medical officers to stage full-blown strike on Monday
Compiled by Minah Nalule
