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Luweero, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Luweero District has embarked on re-organization and recruitment of staff at Luweero Hospital.
On September 5th 2019 the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Health Doctor Diana Atwine upgraded Luweero Health Center IV to General hospital.
Atwine also directed the district to recruit 185 health workers as per staffing standards to enable quality health service delivery. By time the directive was issued the facility had only 88 staff.
As a result, Luweero district has placed an advert calling for qualified people to apply for 26 medical jobs which include medical officer, dental surgeon, ophthalmic clinical officers, dispenser, nurses, artisans, nutritionist, human resource officer and other cadres.
Bernard Okello the Luweero District Human Resource Officer says after the directive from the Permanent Secretary, the CAO wrote to Ministry of Public Service to allow the district to reorganize and recruit new staff in regard to the wage bill.
He added that some key vacant posts which are not advertised will be filled by sourcing internally and they have already asked the District Health department to recommend qualified staff for tasks.
Okello explained that they also intend to make transfers to streamline the hospital staff structure as per approved norms because some of 88 staff may not be qualified to stay there.
He, however, noted that they were not able to secure funding required to recruit 185 staff within the financial year.
Okello says they intend to recruit at least 60% of the required staff in financial year 2019/2020 and other posts will be filled in other financial years.
Dr Innocent Nkonwa the Luweero District Health Officer has confirmed the re-organisation and said that more consultations are being made to streamline operations at the hospital.
Nkonwa has also been appointed to serve as Acting Medical Superintendent of Luweero Hospital.
Herbert Ssekabira a member of Luweero Hospital management committee welcomed the recruitment exercise but says that advertised posts are still fewer to create desired changes.
Ssekabira has asked the district leadership to lobby for more funds so that more health workers are recruited to handle overwhelming numbers of patients.
The recruitment has also been hindered by lack of equipment to enable some proposed staff to work at the facility.
Ronald Ndawula the LCV Chairperson Luweero says that through development grant advanced to the hospital, they intend to build more wards and buy some equipment which is needed to attract more staff.
Ndawula says that expansion is intended at decongest the hospital after number of patients increased following elevation of health centre IV to hospital status.
The on-going recruitment will cost additional expenditure of 517 million shillings on district budget.
According to district budget, about 6.7 out of 9 billion shillings allocated to health department goes to payment of health workers.
The budget for health workers’ salaries is projected to increase to 7.2 billion shillings in 2020/2021 as the district make more recruitment to improve service delivery at hospital and other health centres.
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