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| Medical Interns on strike |
If you're in Uganda l probably don't have to go through the details of the medical interns strike and the outcomes of them being fired. But well about 3 days or so ago the ministry of health sent out a decree that all the medical interns, who have been on strike for an increase in their pay, have been fired and are supposed to get out of the hospitals within a week.
This doesn't come as a shock though we pretended to be shocked. Workers striking in Uganda for increased pay, better system organization is not a new thing, just recently, the doctors themselves were on strike, the nurses, and we don't even need to talk about the teachers because we've sung that song and we are now very sure of the beats and the lyrics.
Anyways, let's look at how the internship system works in Uganda and this is information you will not find online so you better pay me for it.
So if you are doing any university course, be it a certificate, diploma, bachelors, am not sure about the masters l think let's leave the generals' issues but well, for any education course you are subjected to a mandatory internship training that has to contribute to your general score (CGPA). This internship is managed and regulated by the university, you could do three internships for a three-year course or two or even one according to the teaching guidelines of the university.
It is to be noted that all these internships are free, the student is not entitled to any pay or allowance, it is only up to the goodness of the hiring company to give you a small stipend but we can not cry or demand it. Some courses are only required to do research and not the practical internship but you could end up spending large sums of money doing that required research, the money you will never get back in any form.
This brings me to the medical interns and their cause for the strike. After talking to someone in the medical field, (l will never write about something l know nothing about) l was told that medical students after graduation are employed by the government for a year on an internship basis but with like a small pay assigned to them. You know those lines your parents used to lure you into doing medicine "doctors get employed right out of school" but you still didn't fall for it? Well, this is it, so every graduate doctor, after the 5 years of university is mandated to do a one-year internship training to fine-tune their skills, even if it were me l wouldn't trust a doctor who has just got out of school to open me up. Not when l know, from first principles, the state of our education system.
It should be noted that every graduate doctor is employed, more like placed in a government hospital to do this "paid" internship. Keep in mind that it is not easy to get an internship placement for every course, some companies even ask for a payment before they train you, but well that's not today's topic.
During their medical course of study, they do most of their practical work from the school hospitals. That's why most medical schools usually have a hospital too and this works like their laboratory though with real specimens. So this post-graduate internship is to equip them with hands-on skills to make them well prepared to handle people's lives better. Yes, they end up doing a lot of work because they already had some skills, and the professional doctors come in to collect the wins but should we forget that this is still on an internship basis? That you are in some type of way still under the education system?
This reminds me of the lawyers who after their specified course have to do a 2-year course, what we the non-lawyers know as LDC, that you still have to pay for before you can get hired as a lawyer. So why do the medical interns have a payment structure allocated to them? This all stems from how the country values the specific education courses, placing science education high and mighty superior to arts education. The students in the different fields come out with the belief that they are entitled to better pay, better working conditions, better lifestyles! This is what has corrupted the young minds and so bred entitlement in their careers.
Don't get me wrong am not against medical interns being paid because they do the work and should be compensated for it but so does a graduate trainee working in coca-cola company (or any other company) in the manufacturing sector, in the human resources department but because they don't work for the government and are not entitled to that pay, we never hear their cries.
The other day l saw a tweet that someone who did a Bsc. in Stapling and Office Management wondering why the medical interns need to be paid and yet he wasn't for her internship. It carried a lot of sarcasm implying that the Management intern doesn't need to be paid because their course is easy (well to my interpretation of the tweet). My point is, as a country we should look further than depriving medical interns of their allowance to improve the education system and creating a smooth transition to the employment world after education, where we have terribly failed as a country. Also, the fact that because the medical interns fill in for the already inadequate doctors should be addressed from the grassroots of why the doctors are inadequate, to begin with.
Pose these questions to yourself, how many doctors have you produced in your family, later on in your clan, village? What stopped you from doing medicine? Why would you talk your little siblings out of doing medicine? I know answers like, medicine is hard, it's expensive, the schools don't even teach the science subjects well, they have no laboratories will come up and it all takes us back to our education system. The moment we as a country start investing in our education is when we will get answers to our grievances.
But well, firing the medical interns is low for us as a country but were the interns themselves dramatic with their strike demands? I would say a little!
