Uganda goes to the polls of February 18th, and candidates are on the campaign trail as there are only two weeks.
While campaign in Isingiro Western Uganda this Wednesday, FDC presidential flag bearer Rtd. Col. Dr. Kiiza Besigye promised a minimum salary of Shs3.5m for medical doctors as a way to start the journey of healing Uganda’s “sick health sector.”
The average salary of a doctor in a government hospital is currently about Shs700,000. Besigye promises that nurses will earn a minimum salary of Shs650,000.
Besigye has been going around showing the dire situation of Uganda’s hospitals and several hospitals in the areas he campaigns at are now manned by Police to stop him from accessing them.
Besigye, a medical doctor himself, believes part of the problem stems from poor pay of doctors, leading to manpower flight, where many of them seeker greener pastures abroad.
“We shall establish a health service that is better for patients, better for staff and better for all of us,” he said.
“Shs377 billion is spent on treatment of VIPs abroad over a five term of government. This money can build a number of hospitals and pay health workers a rewarding and dignifying compensation. We can afford to finance access to quality health services for all our citizens,” Besigye says.