Government has reassured lawmakers that medical interns who have been deployed will be paid their allowances.
The Ministry of Health has deployed over 2,000 medical interns to health facilities across the country amid policy changes over payment of allowances.
The Government Chief Whip, Hon. Ruth Aceng told Parliament that the policy change does not affect the government sponsored medical students.
“Private medical interns are the ones without facilitation. The Minister of Health [Hon. Chris Baryomunsi] was asked to provide more information because even senior medical officers are affected,” said Aceng.
She was responding to a matter raised by the Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Joel Ssenyonyi over the lack of facilitation of medical interns during the plenary sitting on Tuesday, 04 August 2026.
Ssenyonyi was concerned that while the medical interns are expected to report to their duty stations this week, government has not committed to paying the required Shs1 million for each.
“Some [Interns] do not have transport to their duty stations, nor resources to settle and start work. The Vice President and Minister of Health made a commitment that Cabinet would meet and resolve the matter but to date, there is no solution,” Ssenyonyi said.
Under the medical education and internship policy, medical students are expected to complete a mandatory supervised clinical internship before receiving their university degrees.
Meanwhile, Ssenyonyi tasked government to provide a report on the continued suspension of several Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).
“Ten NGOs that were suspended by government for eight months over subversive activities are still in limbo. They were not given a chance to defend themselves and yet they are registered organisations,” he said.
He listed some of the NGOs affected including Chapter Four Uganda, Alliance for Election Finance Monitoring, National NGO Forum, National Coalition for Human Rights Defenders, African Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture Victims and Human Rights Networks for Journalists in Uganda, among others.
Ssenyonyi called for the reinstatement of the NGOs arguing that they were employing several Ugandans who now remain jobless.
