‘This must stop’: Minister warns doctors against absenteeism in hospitals

State Minister for Health Anifa Kawooya Bangirana has warned doctors against absenteeism from their duty stations saying it endangers the population.

“One of the cancers of corruption is absenteeism at any level and when it comes to our health facilities, it’s the worst and dangerous. Government enhanced our doctors’ salaries despite all the financial constraints that we are in but then you reach a facility when there isn’t a single doctor, yet the patients are there. This issue of absenteeism must stop,” she urged.

Kawooya was speaking in Entebbe on Thursday at the opening of the 2-day first South Buganda- 1- regional review mission aimed at strengthening health services in the country’s health centres, including Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital.

“The wage is a very big issue. We said let’s carry out recruitment. We are happy the ceiling has gone up to Shs1 billion and we have moved forward and recruited 48 specialists, but you don’t even find the one specialist that we have available at a health facility,” she decried.

Ministry of Health public health director Daniel Kyabayinze said a new digital system rolled out by the government will capture doctors who are deployed at health facilities but then organise themselves to work some days and stay away on other days yet they are being paid.

“All services are going to be captured using medical records which are digital. We will be able to see who has worked on how many patients. We also have biometric ways of capturing information which can now show somebody has been able to work for a minimum of 18 to 21 days, that’s how our payment system will be capturing them,” he explained.

The former chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Health, Dr. Charles Ayume, said there is need to identify health centre III’s in the five districts of Wakiso, Mpigi, Butambala, Nakaseke and Gomba that can be upgraded to Health Centre IV’s in order to decrease the number of referrals to Entebbe.

“With the health centre IV you have two medical officers and a spectrum of services where some cases can be taken care of. If we don’t build capacity at the lower levels, then we are going to get all sorts of cases swarming Entebbe Hospital yet a referral hospital should look at secondary and tertiary care,” he remarked.

Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital director John Bosco Nsubuga said they have developed capacity in terms of human resource with more specialists recruited in order to handle cases referred from lower facilities.

“We are having more patients being referred to Entebbe for specialized care through which we support the lower levels. We don’t only wait for patients to be brought here, we are training laboratory personnel at lower health facilities among other things which will rule out the need for patients to travel to Entebbe for the same standard quality services,” he revealed.