After 27 years, sick hospitals a disgrace

But they are still senior members of government. Other similarly well-connected persons have enjoyed similar exclusive treatment at a reported annual cost of $150 million to the taxpayer.

With two ministers getting flown abroad for medical attention in the same week, there can be no more vivid illustration of the complete rejection of Uganda’s health care system by a leadership that has been here for 27 years.

First Deputy Premier Eriya Kategaya and Internal Affairs ministers Hillary Onek are the sort of people who can be said to be at the periphery of the system; a rare species of politicians best described as insiders who tend to remain outside the bubble.

But they are still senior members of government. Other similarly well-connected persons have enjoyed similar exclusive treatment at a reported annual cost of $150 million to the taxpayer.

We feel for their families, but it is also impossible to ignore the rage of Ugandans seething in cyberspace and elsewhere over this. Ugandans are asking, why does it have to be this way? Why do they have to spend dollars in far away lands when the sensible thing would have been to invest in our own facilities? After all, Rwanda’s leaders next door have in less than a decade established a relatively competent national health service.

The people’s distress draws from the well-publicised anarchy that prevails in even our regional referral hospitals, which should ordinarily be centres of excellence for specialised care.
That hopelessness pervading public facilities has bred resentment at the disproportionate government expenditure on its political minions as opposed to desperately-needed investment in sectors as critical as health.

It is appalling that Uganda’s national referral hospital at Mulago has willfully been allowed to become a death trap.

This country’s so-called leaders must realise that hiding behind the knowledge that they can routinely deep into the public purse when taken ill offers only superficial protection. It is not too late to learn from the example of the American professor who recently donated $200,000 worth of equipment in a bid to improve the near-medieval facilities at Mulago’s neurosurgical unit.

The disgrace that is our hospitals, considering the extent of theft taking place, is intolerable. One shouldn’t forget that only recently a Shs1.2 billion heist of public money, suspected to be part of a racket between health ministry and National Medical Stores staff, was averted!