The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda Medical Association-UMA the umbrella body of medical workers in the country wants government to centralize the recruitment of health workers. Currently, medical workers deployed to lower health facilities are recruited by respective District Service Commissions.
The Health Service Commission only handles recruitment of officials at the Ministry of Health headquarters, national and regional referral hospitals and the directorate of public health under Kampala Capital City Authority in addition to specialized institutions like the Heart and Cancer Institute.
The rest are recruited by District Service Commissions, which are riddled with corruption.
However, Dr. Ekwaro Obuku, the President Uganda Medical Association, says instead of hiring competent health workers, District Health Service Commissions hire people who are never available in hospitals.
He there is need for government to centralize the recruitment of health workers so as to attract highly qualified staff to improve health service delivery in public facilities.
According to Dr. Obuku, apparently health facilities especially health center IVs that are supposed to do Caesarian sections can’t do them because of an acute shortage of anesthesiologists.
He says while some qualified professionals might want to take up the jobs they are kept off by bureaucracies and at times demands by corrupt district officials.
With the adoption of e- recruitment by the Commission at the center, Obuku says it should be easy for interviews to be done at the center such that its only qualified officials that are posted to public health facilities and can be easily supervised.
Recruitment of district health workers was decentralized and transferred to local governments in 1997 as a solution to among others reduce the challenge of posting a single health worker to multiple districts and ease supervision.
This is now seen by doctors to be failing.
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