Medical workers at Jinja Hospital go on strike, patients stranded
The strike at Jinja Hospital by medical workers over the arrest of a colleague has paralysed service delivery. Here a body is carried away from one of the wards by relatives. Photo by Denis Edema.
Patients at Jinja Hospital have been forced to fend for themselves after more than 60 medical personnel at the hospital went on strike protesting the arrest of their colleague.
Dr Charles Barungi was arrested after a patient he had operated on at the hospital theatre died on Friday, August 3. He is in detention at Nalufenya police station.
The doctor was arrested following an outcry by relatives of the patient who claimed he had solicited a bribe of Shs700, 000 from Sulah Nsubuga, the father of the deceased, Shanita Nakato, before agreeing to perform a caesarian procedure.
Dr. Michael Osinde, the Jinja Hospital director, this Monday morning said the will not return to duty unless Dr. Barungi is released and Jinja political leaders apologise to the medical staff for the way they handled the situation.
The politicians, led by LC 5 Chairman Fred Ngobi Gume, stormed the hospital and forced the medical superintendent to produce Dr Barungi, who was then arrested. They also accused the entire hospital administration of negligence.
The strike has affected all wards at the hospital, with patients left to their own devices.
Nuliat Nantogo, for example, gave birth in the hospitals’ ward eight compound on Sunday evening with the help of her partner, Thomas Kubi, after doctors and other medical workers refused to attend to her.
Kubi says her labor pains set on while she was in the compound, and could not walk back into the ward. He then assisted her give birth to a baby girl, cutting and tying the infant’s umbilical cord.
This reporter counted over 40 women at wards seven and eight with both pre and post-birth complications, unattended to.
Intern doctors who reported to the hospital this morning had to leave because there were no doctors to supervise them.
Meanwhile, patients say they have no medication but cannot leave because their files are with the striking medical personnel.
A meeting between the Jinja district leadership and medical personnel, seeking to bring the strike to an end, was arranged to be held at the hospital this morning.
