Medical Council needs UGX 8 Billion to clear case backlog – The Kampala Report

The Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council (UMDPC) has a backlog of over 50 cases of medical negligence reported against its members.

Prof Joel Okullo, the council’s chairman, says that the number of cases of negligence, indiscipline, and lack of professionalism among doctors reported to them is rising. Dr Okullo was speaking to the media on Wednesday after the inauguration of an eight-member new council.

They are Dr Okullo himself as the Chair, Dr Ivan Kisuule as the Secretary and Dr Henry Mwebesa, Dr Maxwell Okello, Dr Mark Muyanga, Dr Daniel Tumwine, Dr Asphas Owaraganise, Dr Joseph Ngozi, and Dr Ayub Twaha as members.

He cites a case reported last week where a medical doctor did a flawed prostate surgery but went ahead to tear the documents, summoning him for interrogation.

Okullo says that while they would quickly handle these cases, the new council, like the previous one, will face the challenge of funding. The council is allocated a budget of two billion Shillings annually, yet it would need about eight billion Shillings to function efficiently.

Dr Henry Mwebesa, the Director General of Health Services, noted that the council has cases that have lagged since 2020 and worries that the government will be sued if negligence issues continue to rise in government hospitals without being solved.

Mwebesa says the challenge is partly because young doctors are not well supervised, and intakes to training sites are too high. He acknowledges that some doctors have been trained but cannot do simple things like finding a vein.

So far, 1482 intern doctors and dentists have been registered, but this figure is expected to be higher as the number of medical schools has grown to 13 nationwide.

Okullo worries that with the growing number of young doctors without a matching number of specialists who are supposed to supervise them, challenges of incompetence and medical errors will only worsen.

He is also concerned about the untamed backdoor entry into the profession. He cites an example of a health training institution that went to court and was cleared to continue training even when the council found it lacking the requisite capacity.

Margret Muhanga, the Minister of Health in charge of Primary Healthcare, presided over the inauguration event. She expressed concern about the absence of women on the board, as 30 per cent of the board members are supposed to be women.