Africa-Press – Uganda. Leaders of medical lab professionals have said they will only cater for emergency services during the industrial action that starts today.
Mr Dennis Alibu, the secretary general of Uganda Medical Laboratory Technology Association (UMLTA), yesterday said their members conduct Covid-19 testing, diagnose diseases for patients to get the right treatment and screen blood for transfusion in hospitals.
“Medical laboratory services in the country form an integral and vital component of healthcare delivery with doctors and other clinicians basing more than 80 percent of patient treatment on results from the testing laboratory,” he said.
He added: “Following poor response of government authorities responsible for our requests, starting tomorrow [today], medical laboratory professionals in all government facilities will go on industrial action.”
The association has about 10,000 members, with some working in private facilities. Mr Alibu asked their colleagues in private facilities to join the strike, saying their working conditions too are poor.
The country has more than 1,500 laboratories, of which six are national referral labs and 16 are regional laboratories.
A total of 110 are general hospitals and 186 health centre IV labs, among others.
“We shall prioritise the emergency services such as blood transfusion by encouraging the respective heads of the department to put in place skeleton staff to handle cases that are emergency in nature that will need blood and a few that the leadership will deem necessary,” he said.
The strike by lab professions comes at a time when medical interns and medical officers are on strike.
This means patients will experience more frustrations given the past narratives from hospitals when only doctors and interns were striking.
Mr Alibu told journalists that they are striking for 12 reasons and pertinent on the list, is the failure by government to absorb into public service and give good payment to more than 3,000 degree holders who are not employed by the government.
“We want the government to expedite the process of re-designation of all in service medical laboratory professionals who have been in public service for long and at the same time attained additional papers including degrees and masters,” he said.
He added: “Those who upgrade and complete degrees are paid as diploma holders. Certificate holders are paid about Shs800,000 and diploma holders get Shs1.2m .”
But in a December 16 letter, Dr Diana Atwine, the permanent secretary of Ministry of Health, asked hospital directors and district authorities to work with the district or health service commission to address the issue of lab professionals.
“Reference is made to the letter dated January 3, 2019 from the permanent secretary, Ministry of Public Service regarding circular standing instructions No.9 of the 2018 (scheme of service for medical laboratory cadre in the Uganda public service).
Whereas Section 7 of the circular standing instruction referred to above, required responsible officers to make submissions on all serving medical laboratory staff to the district service commission and health service commission for designation by March 30, 2019, the leadership of the UMLTA has complained that the laboratory staff have never been designated,” the letter reads in part.
It adds: “Arising from the above, this is to remind all of you to submit all medical laboratory staff who have not been designated to respective service commission for immediate action.”
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