Uganda’s Ministry of Health (MoH) has fired hundreds of health workers, saying it has no money to pay their salaries.
Government had hired about 700 health workers such as anesthesiologists, lab professionals and nurses to work in Covid19 treatment units of national and regional referral hospitals under the emergency response program.
In November 2021, the Health Service Commission issued a notice to the effect that there would be a validation exercise in which these health workers would be absorbed in health facilities.
But on March 18, 2022, Dr Diana Atwine, the MoH Permanent Secretary, wrote to all hospital directors directing that all health workers under the Emergence Response to Covid19 units be relieved of their duties and ordered to leave by close of business on March 30, 2022.
The health workers, under the Uganda Medical Association, complained that they had not been paid their salaries, for up to six months for some of them.
They have also threatened to sue the ministry for failing to absorb them.
The ministry insists that at at the moment, there are no funds to recruit them. Minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng says the health workers will be absorbed as and when the resources become available.
The firing of the health workers comes at a time when it is not clear if government will increase salaries for doctors, teachers and other civil servants.
As we reported recently, President Museveni’s Government has proposed huge salary increments for teachers, doctors and other employees starting July 2022. (Read Story Here)
