Save citizens from poor healthcare

For four days, Ms Musazi had been at Bulumbi Health Centre III waiting for the right moment to deliver her baby. FILE PHOTO 

In Summary

• The issue: Poor healthcare
• Our view: Government must rescue the healthcare sector. Ugandans don’t deserve to continue dying in such regrettable situations. It is the reason we fought for independence to develop and manage our social services sector better than the colonialists.

By Editor

This week, another story of the sad situation of Uganda’s healthcare sector happened. A baby who was being delivered at Bulumbi Health Centre III in Busia District died at the hands of a midwife.
Reportedly, the mother had been at the hospital for four days without being attended to by any medic, confirming the extent to which the healthcare services have slumped in government health facilities across the country.

On the fourth day, when the labour pains peaked, the midwife attempted to conduct the delivery.
The baby came legs first, while the head remained trapped inside the mother’s birth canal.

The baby died and added on the existing statistics of the 94 babies who die every day in Uganda during birth. In November last year, another child at Jinja National Referral Hospital lost a limb after a botched surgical operation.

These two incidents are just a tip of the iceberg on the hundreds of people who die at the medical practitioners in the public healthcare sector. They point to the pathetic situation in our public hospitals, which have now become more of death centres than health centres where people go seeking to save their lives.

It shows the kind of suffering majority Ugandans go through in government hospitals, especially poor citizens who can’t afford expensive treatment in private health facilities.

Bulumbi health centre reportedly has only two midwives and apparently the midwife had spent a whole week on duty alone. This points to the acute shortage of manpower in the health sector.

The Jinja incident also suggests a similar situation. Otherwise, why would an intern conduct a complicated C-section operation if there were senior and experienced doctors at the hospital?

These two incidents show how, among others, how inadequate manpower in government hospitals, have cost the country thousands of lives in deaths that could have been prevented under a functioning healthcare system.

Government must rescue the country’s healthcare sector. Ugandans do not deserve to continue dying in such regrettable situations.

It is the reason we fought for independence to develop and manage our social services sector better than the colonialists. Unfortunately, we are not living up to this promise.