By Mulengera Reporters
On Tuesday, Health Minister Chris Baryomunsi addressed a plenary session of Parliament and reported that the medical interns-related disputes (regarding their allowances and being able to graduate minus completing internship) had been resolved at the cabinet level.
Baryomunsi reported that each intern would be getting Shs1m per month after tax and that they would also be free to graduate immediately after passing their exams regardless of whether one takes up/completes the internship engagement or not.
This means that the impulse, which had caused hundreds of medical interns to go to war with government, had been resolved and the day’s presiding officer Thomas Tayebwa described this as good news for which he suggested Baryomunsi gets appreciated. Saying there was no time, Tayebwa decreed that only two people would make response to Baryomunsi’s submission. These included LoP Joel Ssenyonyi and the chairman of the Health Committee.
In his submission, Ssenyonyi commended Baryomunsi for delivering resolution to the stalemate but also urged him to continue engaging the President and Cabinet to ensure that in future the interns facilitation gets increased beyond the mere Shs1m which he said is no longer adequate.
“Hon Minister I appreciate the fact that you are a medical doctor who also benefited from this allowance. However, it has been at that rate for many years and today the value of that Shs1m has been diminished with passage of time and also because of iflation. Everything has become more expensive than it was when you were an intern and earned that Shs1m per month. I’m sure it’s like 40 years ago since you went through that internship.”
Because Ssenyonyi’s reference to ’40 years ago’ was understood to be aimed at portraying Baryomunsi as a very old Minister, there was sarcastic laugher across the chamber of Parliament and also in the gallery as those present reflected on Chris Baryomunsi’s actual age. When his time to respond came, Baryomunsi denied being that old and clarified that, for the LoP’s own information, he joined the Makerere Medical School in 1990 and graduated in 1995.
He asked the members present to work out the math and see for themselves that the LoP wasn’t being truthful in portraying him as someone so old to the extent that he was a medical intern over 40 years ago. There was more laughter which engulfed everyone present, including the Speaker. Baryomunsi sarcastically described himself as a bridge falling between the young and old; implying that whereas he isn’t as young as Joel Ssenyonyi is, he simultaneously isn’t that old. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
