Adventist teaching hospital staff suspended for caning students

A video grab of one of the students being caned by a tutor. The implicated tutors have been suspended by the school.

Two teaching staff of Ishaka Adventist Hospital and Health Training Institution have been suspended after videos showing them caning nursing students went viral on social media this week.

The videos caused an uproar on the way students are treated at the institution.

According to a Wednesday statement by the hospital administration, the act of administering corporal punishment was against school rules.

“Our rules and regulations are very clear. I am very saddened by these actions and I want the entire public to know that these tutors did what they did in their own capacity,” Ms Lydia Komugisha, a senior administrator said.

The hospital also wrote to the Ministry of Education indicating that the employees captured in the video had been suspended.

“I am very sorry especially to our students who happened to be the victims of these corporal punishments. The institution has out-rightly suspended the two tutors involved in this,” Ms Komugisha said.

Ms Sarah Opendi, the state minister in charge of General Duties at the Ministry of Health, condemned the action of beating nursing students.

“Treating adults like children should be condemned in the highest terms possible. I have tasked the Commissioner Nursing in the Ministry of Health to follow up this action and take necessary disciplinary action.

Some of the victims told NTV, an affiliate of Daily Monitor, that they accepted the punishments to avoid being suspended if not being expelled from the institution after making simple errors.

“I was punished out of my will after jumping over flowers in the compound, other than that [accepting to be caned] I would be suspended,” one of the students said.

Another student said: “I was punished because I stepped in the boy’s hostel. It wasn’t out of my wish but instead of suspending me, I had to accept the punishment.”