Striking doctors will consider calling off their industrial action after registering progress in negotiations with government, the President of Uganda Medical Association (UMA) Dr. Ekwaru Obuku has said.
According to Dr. Obuku, UMA will convene a general assembly in the next forty eight hours to relay information in respect to the National Executive Committee decision that called for industrial action, which in turn paralysed health services in the country and led to the death of two patients.
“Industrial action is a function of the general assembly; we don’t have the mandate to stop it because we lack powers,” Dr. Obuku said this afternoon while appearing on a local TV station.
Meanwhile, Dr. Ebuku has distanced UMA from assertions peddled that the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF) doctors deployed to work in Kiruddu and Kawempe hospitals did not have the requisite qualifications.
“Most of them are our members in the association and in no way did we say that they are of inferior quality,” he added.
Two weeks ago, doctors under their umbrella body, the Uganda Medical Association, convened a General Assembly and agreed to go on strike protesting government’s failure to increase their salaries and to improve their welfare.
And in a bid to diffuse the attendant situation, last week a team of six ministers and other senior government officials met with the UMA executive committee members to negotiate for the suspension of industrial action in vain.
Since the beginning of the industrial action medical doctors have only been offering emergency services at various government facilities to pregnant mothers and accident victims.
