Covid-19: MPs, staff subjected to mandatory testing

Ministry of Health experts will today commence the screening for Covid-19 from all Members of Parliament and the parliamentary staff, Speaker Rebecca Kadaga announced Wednesday.

During her communication at the start of plenary sitting, Ms Kadaga said that Parliament cannot be left out after there have been rounds of testing for the ministers who continue to mix with untested MPs.

“Starting from tomorrow at our medical centre here, you can go and get tested but we shall have to cluster it because we cannot have all of you there and the Clerk will organize,” she said.

Since March when the plenary sittings were first held in the conference hall after abandoning the main chambers in order to maintain social distancing, the MPs have been calling for their routine testing but arrangements have not been made.

A number of MPs were even pointed out for having walked to the House after returning from category one countries before the Airport was closed on March 22. The MPs including two state ministers whose husbands (also MPs) had returned from abroad were sent on 14-day self-isolation and were only re-admitted to Parliament upon producing a health certificate with Covid-19 negative results.

Ms Hellen Kawesa, the Acting Director for Information and Public Affairs told Daily Monitor that this round of screening for MPs and staff is being done on the advice of the Ministry of Health and the National Task Force.

“The Parliament has been advised by the medical personnel on the Covid-19 National Task Force and from the Ministry of Health that MPs screen for Covid-19 on site.  The reason behind this has not been revealed to us by the Ministry of Health,” she said.

The need for screening came hours after the rumour made rounds that a female legislator who had been on duty on Tuesday had tested positive for Covid-19.

The rumour resulted from a social media post attributed to Aruu County MP Samuel Odonga Otto claiming that he had been advised to leave Parliament after one of the female MPs tested positive.

“I have just been tipped to get out of Parliament that a Ugandan female MP tested positive for coronavirus. The information should be made public. Why are they hiding it? She was in parliament yesterday (Tuesday),” the post goes.

The Speaker while opening the sitting made no mention of any information related to the rumour that had circulated early in the day.  Mr Otto who was not in attendance of the plenary sitting was not available to give more details on the post attributed to him as his known telephone contact was off.

However, Ms Kawesa dismissed any information that a female MP had tested positive.

“The Parliament does not have any information about any member who has tested positive for Covid-19. The decision to inform Parliament if this was true depends on the patient or doctor confidentiality and Parliament would not breach it” she said.

 UTILITY

The screening of MPs starts at 9am in the Eastern wing’s examination room on a first come basis. The medical team will be handling 20 MPs at ago.

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