Ugandan Doctors Engage in Demeaning Kneeling Spectacle Supporting Museveni

Kneeling doctors ask Museveni to seek seventh term- screamed a BBC Africa news headline on 12/05/2022

Photo: YouTube

Kneeling doctors ask Museveni to seek seventh term- screamed a BBC Africa news headline on 12/05/2022 and immediately caught my attention. It left me incredulous, ashamed of my profession and utterly disgusted that my colleagues in Uganda would prostrate themselves in front of a tyrant begging him to run for the 7th term.

Yoweri Museveni seized power at the barrel of the gun in 1986 and has since held on to power through series of sham elections to satisfy his enablers in the US. He joins an exclusive club of rogue leaders who have clung to power fraudulently for more than 3 decades. Top 5 making the list are Teodoro Obiang Nguyema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea, Paul Biya of Cameroon, Denis Sassou of the Congo Republic, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Isaias Afeworki of Eritrea.

The Ugandan Medical Association (UMA) was established in 1964, then as a branch of the British Medical Association. It describes its core values as: Team work, Integrity, Gender sensitivity, Democracy, Transparency and Accountability. It has as its vision “All the people in Uganda have access to quality health and health care”

That vision is far from being realized 58 years later in 2022. The doctors and nurses have on many occasions protested and staged strikes over the past two years decrying the deplorable conditions of government run hospitals and health institutions, the poor quality of health care, the low wages of health care workers, inadequate supplies and lack of safety resulting from the government health policy that left these public institutions underfunded and understaffed.

According to Dr. Luswata, secretary general of the Ugandan Medical Association “The government employs only 1,600 doctors, yet there are 4,000 vacant posts in government hospitals lacking doctors,” he goes on to add “there are more than 2,700 in Uganda but they are not employed and are planning to move to other countries, most likely the UK, US, Kenya, Rwanda and Botswana”.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/poor-pay-forcing-ugandan-doctors-to-flee-to-other-countries/2431077

Uganda is not alone in this regard. Almost all African countries with the exception of South Africa perhaps are in similar predicament. There are multiple factors to account for the low investment in health care, among which are ill conceived and designed health care policies, disproportionate expenditure on security services, corruption, lack of democracy and transparency and above all prescriptions by international lending institutions such as IMF and World Bank that prioritized private economic interests over the public good as was the case with the Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) that wiped out gains in education and health in the earlier years following independence before SAP.

That’s why the sight of white robed doctors kneeling before the president begging him to run again was so dissonant, shameful and demeaning and incompatible with the medical association’s stated core values which are antithetical to the president’s.

Many members of the Association have been outraged and social medial comments have been uniformly negative condemning the action of Dr. Oledo, the UMA president and some are calling for his resignation. The Ugandan Medical Association has issued statement distancing itself from the despicable spectacle led by Dr. Oledo.

It is incumbent on the leadership of the UMA to investigate the circumstance that led to this highly politicized partisan action by its president and refer it to an ethics and disciplinary committee or something similar for appropriate action. Its credibility as an association of professionals and an advocate for the health and wellbeing of their patients is at stake.

Mohammed A. Nurhussein MD

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