James Onen aka Fatboy has questioned the need to pay intern doctors yet they work to gain experience as medical practitioners.
This was after him and Olive were commenting on the sit down strike arranged by medical intern doctors where the president of the Federation of Uganda Medical Interns (FUMI), Mary Nabwire demanded for salary increment of medical interns from UGX 750,000 to UGX 2.5 million as promised by President Museveni
This prompted Fatboy to ask why doctors working as interns should get paid to which Olive responded by saying: “Student doctors study general medicine, but in one of their course studies, they do internship as qualified medical doctors for which they are supposed to get paid. Actually in most hospitals, you’ll be attended to by intern doctors but you won't even know,” she explained.
Furthermore, Fatboy questioned treatment of patients by inexperienced intern doctors as the cause for some instances of negligence; something Olive partly conceded to. “When I was having my last baby on the theatre table, I heard someone screaming instructions to the doctor operating on me saying ‘you do this and pull out the baby, if something happens they are going to blame me!’ and that's when I figured out I was being attended to by an intern! But that's what happens,” she commented..
A number of times, medical interns have laid down working tools blaming the government for not catering to their needs, while forcing them to work under poor conditions such as long working hours, inability to afford lunch or rent decent houses with the given allowances.
This is the second time medical interns have striked this year following an earlier instance that happened in May over the same issue.
The Fatboy show is hosted by James Onen aka Fatboy, Olive, Sarah and Lesham every weekday from 6am to 10am on RX Radio.
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