School of psychiatric clinical officers operating with three tutors

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Experts at Butabika School of psychiatric clinical officers have asked the government to hire more tutors.

Dr. Juliet Nakku, the Executive Director at Butabika Mental Hospital said the school is grossly understaffed with only three tutors and the principal. She said that if adequate staffing is not addressed, the school may close.

She said the government should quickly consider offering scholarships for tutors for mental health especially now that the country is facing a big and growing burden of mental illnesses exacerbated by recent public health emergencies like COVID-19 which created anxiety and livelihood loss.

Statistics show that in every ten Ugandans, three are battling a form of mental illness and Nakku says it worries that the institution that would be training health professionals to help with the crisis has many times risked closing.

Established in 1974 and the only one in the East African region, the school which offers ordinary and higher diplomas in clinical psychiatry has many times considered closing due to not only a perennial lack of funding but also a lack of students enrolling.

According to Mathias Nampogo, the Principal of the School, even as the school graduates a number of students annually, they can’t afford to conduct a graduation ceremony each year.

Before holding one on Friday, they had waited four years. Again, they only graduated 143 students, too small to match the burden and the fact that mental health facilities established by the government at regional referral hospitals are solely manned by clinical officers as the top professional.

Nampogo said that in forty-nine years of its existence, the school has only held three graduation ceremonies.

Nampogo said the school’s twelve tutors would be sufficient since there are only about 200 students enrolled currently. But the lack of teachers is not the only challenge that the facility faces.

According to Nampogo, other challenges include stocking the laboratory and putting in place a skills lab as another area that needs urgent attention. He notes that for over ten years, the capitation grant has been capped at 45 Million Shillings per quarter.

Dr. John Chrysostom Muyingo, the Education Minister in charge of Higher Education, said that the government will commit resources towards training mental health workers and also expanding the facility.

Meanwhile, even as government promises to set aside funds for the institution, having more tutors in place might take a bit of time since for anyone to become a tutor, they have to first train as a psychiatric clinical officer and then go back to train as a tutor.

To enroll for psychiatric clinical officer training at the ordinary diploma level, one has to have acquired a Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education.

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