Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa has asked Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng the Minister of Health to bring a statement to the house explaining why some medical interns have been asked to sit home for another year pending their deployment to various health facilities for their internship training.
Tayebwa said that yet they are the same people whose studies were disrupted following the closure of education institutions, at the height of the #Covid-19 pandemic.
“I have received several complaints from medical intern students, most of them have bombarded my social media accounts and we know most of them are in the public, some of you pay for us or you have people from your area. They have very many and this issue of their delayed deployment, it is a thorn for us, and it has been happening year after year and then we say, we have very many professional bodies, how come, it is only medical interns who usually have such issues? What is the problem? Is it the issue of funding, is it the issue of facilities?” Tayebwa asked.
Early this week Police dispersed a section of pre-medical interns attached to Makerere University Medical School who were planning to protest the failure of the Ministry of Health to deploy them to various medical centers for internship.
According to the students, none of the 125 from the 2024 class was deployed yet they qualified for the medical practice.
“If you are telling these interns that you are giving them another year at home, I have done my part, I have finished studying but you are saying I can’t practice until I do internship, but then, you aren’t taking me for internship, so what do I do? And most of them lost a lot of time during the #Covid-19 pandemic. I know many colleagues have raised this issue, but I think the right way is, the Minister of Health on Tuesday brings a statement about this issue. Like all other professions, the doctors also need to move,” Tayebwa added.
The Ministry of Health revealed that a total of 2,500 medical students would be deployed for an internship but when it released the final list only about 1,200, nationally, had been deployed.
Prof. Annet Nakimuli, the Dean of School of Medicine Makerere School revealed that management is holding meetings to address this situation to ensure that the students are deployed.
