Shortage of trained medical personnel is affecting health care delivery in Kitgum district.
Alex Olwedo the district director health services says health staffing stands at only 50%.
Olwedo says it has always been difficult to attract and retain staff in the district.
He says many times the district advertises for free vacancies but the successful
applicants do not take up the positions.
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Olwedo says support supervision has become even harder with the growing population and more health centers being created as people return home.
He says ten more health centers have been created in addition to the twenty four that existed three years ago.
Sister Grace Ogwang in charge of Expanded Program on Immunization says the shortage of staff is affecting routine immunization exercises.
Ogwang says in most cases only 70% of the targeted people get immunized. The immunization exercises, she says are not done by well trained personnel but by community health workers.
She says that inaccessibility to far away villages makes some people fail to get regular health care services even more.
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Toolit Tony the secretary for health claims that the two decade insecurity has dissuaded many health workers from working in the district.
Toolit discloses that they have had to deploy traditional birth attendants in most health centers because there are very few trained midwives.
He says most health facilities have only one mid wife, some have none.
The staff shortage is affecting even the Kitgum referral hospital. The hospital has only one doctor.
In the orthopedic department, there are only two physiotherapists attending to patients from Kitgum, Pader, Kabong and South Sudan.
