KAMPALA :The Minister of State for Public Service Lydia Wanyoto Mutende has asked the Ministry of Health, to always forward lists for essential staff to the Ministry of Public service on time every financial year, to ensure that their wage is availed for recruitment, to improve service delivery within the health sector.
During the ongoing two day Scientific Annual Conference and Annual General Meeting (AGM) for Radiographers in Bugoloobi, organized by the Society of Radiography Association of Uganda, it was established that only about 150 out of the total registered over 1200 Radiographers are employed with the government leaving a huge gap in health facilities from referral to health Centre III across the country.
According to the Minister, availing lists on time will give her Ministry time to prioritize recruitment by availing the required wage in an incremental manner through the Health Service Commission.
“For Ministry of Health, their work is to tell us in public service about the essential staff they need for every season and through the Health Service Commission then they recruit because we are not able to manage the wage in an open manner but we support efforts of the wage in an incremental manner through the Health Service Commission and also through the demands from Ministry of Health,” she said.
This year’s conference is organized under the theme; “Upholding patients care”.
Meanwhile, radiography experts in Uganda have asked the government to provide more resources to increase the number of radiography staff across all the government health facilities in the country.
According to the president, Society of Radiographers of Uganda Micah Muhangi, many government facilities employ limited numbers compared to the approved structure.
He was speaking during a Scientific Annual Conference and AGM.
“The challenges that we face, I think, are not the ones in government. There are very few, maybe a hospital will have, for example, four people yet in the structure there are supposed to be maybe 30 people. So that’s why you see a lot of long lines when you go to hospitals, when you go to maybe the regional referral, maybe Molago, maybe Cancer Institute, you’ll find that there are very long lines, but because we have more equipment than people, that means that there’s going to always be some equipment which are not utilised, then there’s going to add to the turnaround time of the patients,” Mr Muhangi said.
According to Statistics, Uganda has over 1200 registered radiographers with only close to 150 employed in the government facilities across the country.
