Inside a Uganda hospital amid a doctors’ strike

25 January 2022, 1:08 pm

As the doctors strike in Uganda continues, I gained access to Kawempe National Referral Hospital in Kampala.

There is only one intern doctor on the ward, and no specialist in sight, in the half hour that I was there.”You’re too many. The health workers are few,” says a nurse to a mother in labour, who hobbles over to her for assistance.

“You need to pray to the president to pay the doctors,” she adds.

There are at least four uniformed security guards patrolling the floor. One, brandishing a club, asks my fixer and I what we want.

We stick close to the truth, saying we are here to visit a doctor for a private matter.

A health worker had agreed to sneak me in to witness the impact of the strike by senior and intern doctors, which has been going on for more than a month to demand better pay and working conditions.