Threats won’t save health sector
(Monitor, Kampala)
Finally the proverbial hammer has been raised and health workers in government aided health facilities must be quaking!
According to the New Vision of February 15, 2008, President Museveni has promised ‘tough times’ to health workers who steal public drugs in government health centres.
I must condemn in the strongest terms the practice of stealing drugs from health centres, whether private or public. But I would also like to inform the president that health workers in this country are already living in tough times indeed and adding them another dose of the same would be counterproductive.
I invite the government to make a critical analysis on why a previously law abiding and sane medical officer who succesfully went through the medical school should be forced to get involved in the despicable and degrading practice of stealing drugs.
Here are some facts. The medical officer is the technical work horse of the public health services in Uganda. These doctors are paid a monthly salary of just over Shs500,000! We all know that the cost of living in this coutnry these days is so expensive.
Now I would like to know which doctor on governmnet payroll in this couutry can survive within the law on half a million shillings and at the same time pay school fees for his/her children up to university?
And by the way doctors are the highest paid members of the health service sector. Just imagine how bad the situation is for nurses and paramedical staff who are after all bear the heaviest burden in the chain of command of patient management.
Doctors and other health workers in this country are financially traumatised and the best therapy for them is most certainly not more tough times.
The plague of disappearing drugs is only a minor detail in what seems to be a terminal cancer that is eating up Uganda’s public health services. We live in hope!
Watiti Masokoyih, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/letters/Threats_won_t_save_health_sector.shtml
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