Health Ministry Wants Personnel Recruitment Re-centralized

The Ministry of Health is seeking to recentralize the recruitment of health personnel to improve staffing and retention rates.

Currently, health workers are recruited and employed by local governments in their respective districts.

Health Minister Christine Ondoa says that her ministry is seeking to have the personnel recruited and paid by the Health Service Commission.

She says that part of the problem of under-staffing in the public health system is caused by local governments’ lack of capacity to recruit and retain the staff due to inadequate financial resources.

The current national staffing rate for health workers stands at 56 percent.

But the process of recentralization, Ondoa admits, won’t be a short and easy one.

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The ministry is targeting to recruit 6000 health workers between 2011 and 2013.

There has also been a budget re-allocation of 5.4 billion shillings, which will go towards staffing of the health system. Ondoa says the money has been raised from cutting down on some ministry activities like workshops and purchase of cars.

Dr. Susan Wandera, the Deputy Director of AMREF Uganda, which partners with the ministry of health in training community health workers, says the civil society is in support of recentralization for the improvement of health care provision.

A statement from the Non-State Health Facility Networks read at the just-concluded Joint Review Mission in the health sector, says that human resources issues should be handled comprehensively, with consideration to the motivation, development and retention of even those health workers outside of the government health facilities. These health facilities account for 43 percent of all hospitals nationwide.