Poor state of Lango health facilities shocks officials
Left to right: The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Dr Diana Atwine; the Health minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, Dr John Stephen Oboo (Lira hospital director) and Dr Henry Mwebesa at Lira Regional Referral Hospital last Friday. PHOTO/CHARITY AKULLO
BY ISAAC OTWII
Senior officials from the Ministry of Health have expressed shock at the poor state of health facilities in Lango sub-region.
The officials recently conducted a five-day tour of health facilities in Lira, Kole, Oyam, Kwania, Apac, Amolatar, Dokolo, Alebtong, and Otuke districts.
Many of the facilities face challenges of inadequate personnel, drugs and supplies while the buildings are in a sorry state.
At Aromo Health Centre III in Lira District, officials found the maternity unit temporarily shut down after its ceiling collapsed in June.
The officials also found that Adyel and Ober health centre IIIs lacked accommodation for staff and patients were not separated according to sex.
“Why would you put both males and females in the same ward and yet there are other empty rooms. There is no way a woman can change her cloth in the presence of a man,” Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, the minister of Health, said.
Dr Aceng also said some facilities are misusing houses as stores and doing “irrelevant activities”.
Dr Diana Atwine, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health, said the government will start delivering adequate drugs and supplies to the health centres across the country.
“All these facilities with understaffing and lacking drugs will start receiving drugs by December. But you should first make good use of the available resources,” she said last Friday, the last day of their tour.
Mr Jino Okot, the officer-in-charge of Ogur Health Centre IV in Lira, said some people had encroached on the land housing the health facility.
“This facility is not fenced and people have started encroaching on it. Others have started grazing animals in our compound,” he said.
Dr Henry Mwebesa, the director general of health services, said: “Those who do not have land titles should plant artificial edges because people try to encroach on government land.”
