Jumah Kakomo|
Senior medical officers are planning to lay down their tools to push for a pay rise and acceleration in their promotion process to the senior consultant level. The move follows a similar industrial action by Senior House Officers (SHO) and Medical Interns, who are seeking better salaries and deployment to different medical centers.
The senior medical officers, also known as medical officers with a special grade, hold the same qualifications as consultant doctors but earn significantly lower salaries.
Dr. Herbert Luswata, the Secretary General of the Uganda Medical Association (UMA), on Thursday highlighted that there is a 102% difference in the salaries of a medical officer’s special grade and a senior consultant, despite their qualifications being the same and the difference in experience in practice being minor.
He says that UMA has written several letters to the Ministry of Public Service requesting that this error be corrected but to no avail. Luswata has also suggested that changing the name of medical officers’ special grade to associate consultant could help address the confusion about the salary structure.
“The term medical officer special grade was used to refer to locally trained specialists who were not recognized as consultants despite their qualifications by the colonial doctors at the time” he added.
He says that this term has remained not only misleading especially to policymakers but does also degrade the medical specialist in this category and deserves to be changed in to associate consultant, given the fact that a specialist has the same qualifications as a consultant, the only difference being the number of years in service or better still the cranks could be changed in order of seniority to consultant, senior consultant, chief consultant as they are reference in other countries.
Dr. Ismail Mwesigye, a trauma surgeon at Mulago Hospital, has called on the government to provide 21 billion shillings a year to cater for the salaries of the medical officers’ special grade. The senior medical officers have given the government until Monday 9th to address their issues, failing which they will embark on a strike and not handle emergencies in any hospital.
Dr. Iren Asaba Mugisha, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at Mulago National Referral Hospital, points out that the medical officers’ special grade is currently bearing the biggest burden of all the work in the big health centers and tertiary institutions because there are very few senior consultants.
She also notes that 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.
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, and that this has led to several senior doctors leaving the country for better opportunities.
“The senior house officers’ strike is still ongoing, and the situation in hospitals is likely to worsen if the government does not respond to the demands of both groups of medical professionals” , he added.
Medical officers of specialized Grade (MOSG) estimated to about 350 and are currently deployed in higher-Level facilities in the country such as the 5 National Referral Hospital,5 Specialized hospitals 17 National Referrals and 62 general hospitals
