Dr. Alex Adaku, the Director of Fort Portal Regional Referral Hospital, says that even though the workers are entitled to day-offs; they will need to review them the duty rosters such that those who have been getting more days off can have less for purposes of improving service delivery.
Fort Portal
Regional Referral Hospital authorities are set to review the duty roster with a
view of reducing the number of staff day-offs. It stems from the just concluded nationwide supervision
exercise and on-spot check by the Ministry of Health where it was found that “many
health facilities have developed duty rosters allowing health workers to work
an average of 12 to 14 days a month.
On October 19th, 2020, the Health Ministry
Permanent Secretary, Dr. Diana Atwine wrote to all directors of national and
regional referral hospitals, saying this level of attendance to duty is
unsatisfactory and is tantamount to cheating the government. “Therefore, the
responsible officers must review the current duty rosters and correct this
irregularity as a matter of urgency” reads Atwine’s letter.
Atwine also revealed that the levels of absenteeism and late
coming were high and urged the hospital directors to equally find a lasting
solution within two weeks of receiving her letter.
Dr. Alex Adaku, the Director of Fort Portal Regional
Referral Hospital, says that even though the workers are entitled to day-offs;
they will need to review them the duty rosters such that those who have been
getting more days off can have less for purposes of improving service delivery.
Adaku explains that because a regional referral hospital never closes, some
staff who work at night for a consecutive number of days automatically deserve
days off work to fight off fatigue and exhaustion.
He says that since they take long without reviewing the work
schedules of different departments, some staff could be taking advantage of the
loophole to abscond from work.
//Cue in: “The attendance to…
Cue out… normal arrangement.”//
On late coming, Dr. Adaku explains that even though they have a clocking in
system to track when different workers report or leave work, the technology is
inefficient for proper service delivery since it doesn’t follow the staff to
their duty stations.
He says that to ensure the staff report to work and perform their duties; they
will also carry out frequent supervision in different departments on top of reviewing
the data from the clocking in system so that those who will be found off guard
face disciplinary action.
For a long time, members of the public have been criticizing
the management of Fort Portal Regional Referral Hospital over poor service delivery.
On October 18, 2020, Ministry of Health also released the Maternal and
Perinatal mortality situation report, which revealed that the country is
registering many avoidable maternal and mortality deaths largely due to
the sloppiness of the staff.
The report also established that many of the senior medical workers in referral
hospitals were not delivering on their responsibilities due to absenteeism
despite having the competence. It was found that Fort Portal Regional
hospital registers 23 maternal deaths monthly.
In 2018, Kabarole district authorities wrote to Ministry of Health demanding
the transfer of the then Director, Dr. Florence Tugumisirize accusing her of
maladministration and blocking them from accessing the health facility after receiving
information that 45 maternal deaths had been registered in a space of six
months.
