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Posted on Categories Featured 258 Comments on Government should look beyond salaries to motivate the health workers

Government should look beyond salaries to motivate the health workers

Talk about staff motivation and nearly everybody – employees and managers alike – will think of increasing staff salaries. Well, salaries are good but not the only major factor influencing the morale of health workers in Uganda.

Amy Hagopian noted in a 2009 study that Ugandan health workers are dissatisfied with their jobs, especially their compensation and working conditions. About one in four would like to leave the country to improve their outlook, including more than half of all the physicians. The same study highlighted reasons for staff attrition as better opportunities, contract expired, dismissed, domestic problems and going for further studies.

Having a team of well paid health workers in poorly facilitated health units will in itself de-motivate them. A doctor in a Health Centre IV, which has no gloves, medicines, unequipped theatres, and poor diagnostic facilities, will have every reason to miss duty even if they are paid well. Studies have shown that in poor countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, doctors and nurses, along with their colleagues in labs and pharmacies, face shortages of supplies, poor compensation, inadequate management systems, and burdensome workloads. The solution to our health workforce challenges is to strengthen health systems and the professionals who work in them.

No one would love to continue pouring water in a leaking pot before sealing the hole. As we train more health workers, let us not lose the ones we have. β€œNow is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.” These words of Ernest Hemingway, a 20th Century American author and journalist, should not escape the notice of health managers and policy makers in this country.

In addition to improved remuneration, policy reforms to strengthen human resources for health in Uganda should focus on improving working conditions, workload and facility infrastructure (including water and electricity). An incentive like providing access to a computer and the Internet can attract and retain young computer literate graduates.

Dr Jairus Mugadu,
Makerere School of Public Health
mugadujb@gmail.com

Source:Β http://www.monitor.co.ug/OpEd/Letters/Government+look+beyond+salaries+to+motivate+the+health+workers/-/806314/1467820/-/cka0co/-/index.html

Posted on Categories Featured 65 Comments on Kabale considers law to force pregnant women into hospitals

Kabale considers law to force pregnant women into hospitals

Β By Robert Muhereza

Kabale District is working on a by-law to compel pregnant women to give birth at health facilities and penalise those who deliver aided by traditional birth attendants (TBAs).

District speaker Pastoli Twinomuhangi said on Wednesday that he is ready to present the draft by-law for the council’s consideration.Β This follows a recent survey in Rukiga, one of the four counties in Kabale District, where it was found that nearly one in every two expectant women that TBAs help to give birth, die.

β€œAn ordinance is already being drafted to compel mothers in labour to deliver at the established government health centers in order to save their lives and that of the babies,” Mr Twinomuhangi said.

However, according to District Health Officer Patrick Tusiime, the number of women delivered by TBAs has reduced due to intensified mobilisation through media and community meetings.

Half of pregnant women in the district now deliver at health facilities, up from 12 per cent five years ago, the doctor said.

Complaints
However, Ms Allen Busingye, a businesswoman in Kabale town, said some of them prefer the services of TBAs because they offer β€œmotherly care unlike in the health centres where we are attended to by young and abusive nurses.

β€œThe young nurses are rude to the mothers in labour pains,” she said.

The government outlawed the traditional birth attendants, but they continue to thrive especially in rural areas where public health services are either lacking or unaffordable.

The District Deputy Resident District Commissioner, Mr Nickson Kabuye, said his office is investigating reports that some health workers in the district on government payroll extort money from women seeking antenatal care, forcing them to turn to TBAs. The culprits, he said, will soon be exposed.

TBA head responds
The head of TBAs in the district, Mr Charity Mugisha, said an accusation pinning them on causing maternal deaths is baseless because reports of women dying in labour at hospitals are a common place hence not of their (TBAs) own making.

β€œTraditional Birth Attendants are complementing the government efforts in assisting pregnant mothers to have safe deliveries,” he said.

District vice chairperson Mary Bebwajuba noted that a shortage of qualified staff coupled with lack of ambulances are the reasons behind the delay of referrals, leading to many deaths of expectant women in the area due to delayed birth.

Source:Β http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/Kabale+considers+law+to+force+pregnant+women+into+hospitals/-/688334/1463854/-/iox4poz/-/index.html