Recovered Covid-19 patient speaks out on life in hospital

Recovered. Ms Laura Nagasha Barumba during an interview at her home in Bugolobi, Kampala, on April 21, 2020. PHOTO BY RACHEL MABALA

What you need to know:

  • While in Dubai, Ms Barumba had cough but thought it was just a normal cough and had body weakness too and mild flu.

Ms Laura Nagasha Barumba, commonly known as Young Lau, must be one of the happiest women on earth following her full recovery from the coronavirus infection that has ravaged the world.
Ms Barumba is a young political scientist and owns a catering company who travelled to Dubai on March 15 for a short business trip.
However, following the coronavirus outbreak that had started spreading to most of the world, Ms Barumba opted to shorten her trip and returned on March 18. By that time, Uganda had not registered any Covid-19 case.

“I changed my flight because things were getting intense all over the world. Even at home we didn’t have one case, but it seemed I was going to end up being quarantined in another country and I would rather be home,” Ms Barumba narrates.
On arrival at Entebbe International Airport, Ms Barumba was neither checked for temperature nor asked questions about Covid-19 since Dubai by then was not listed among the high risk countries.
She said they even mixed up with other people who had just landed on a different flight. The immigration only checked passports with keen interest on travellers from the Category One countries.

“I came in an Emirates flight, they told us to wait but there was another flight that had landed so we went to immigration. They mixed us, they told us to line up and start showing our passports. The only criteria used was where you were coming from… I left the airport freely. My temperature was not taken,” she recounts.
A few days later, the Ministry of Health asked all people who had travelled from Dubai to show up for testing since it had become a high risk country (Category One).
At this moment, Ms Barumba leans against her couch, hands moving expressively left and right. For a moment she appears buried in unpleasant past memories.
She describes how hard it was to get tested unless one had serious signs and symptoms.
She said it took her time to get tested since her flu was mild. However, she finally contacted someone at the Health ministry who was courteous to visit and test her at home.
“I had been trying to get a doctor but at that time everyone was trying to get tested. The medical institutions that were doing testing were only allowing to test people with severe symptoms and they were using temperature and fever as the criteria which most of us did not have,” Ms Barumba says.
Forty-eight hours after the test was taken, she received unannounced visitors at her home who did not carry good news. She had tested positive to Covid-19 and was to be admitted.

Ms Barumba recounts how she was not given time to prepare what to go with to hospital.
She had just been told her results were inconclusive, but they also told the person she stayed with and asked her not to share with her the information.
Just a few minutes later, an ambulance arrived at her home. She was allowed to prepare for hospital but was not psychologically prepared for admission.
“There is no time to wait, you are not prepared mentally, and there is no time to pack. Even if you don’t counsel people at home, someone picking up people should give them a head-start because it is a first time experience,” Ms Barumba says.

Life in quarantine
On arrival at Mulago National Specialised Hospital, Ms Barumba was told to enter the ward. Little did she know she would not leave.
“They told me to walk in, I did not know there was no walking out,” she says. “I stayed hungry until night when I met a hajjati who gave me water,” she adds.
Ms Barumba says she lost hope and was as scared as a kid left alone in a dark and thick forest away at night.
“The first night was terrible. There was no one to tell you what next. I slept on a bed with no bed sheets. I thought I was going to die, especially on the first night,” she says.
While in the institutional quarantine, medical workers clad like moon walkers, showed up at 6am to check vitals such as body temperature, breathing rate, blood pressure among others. They would check on them at least four times a day for treatment and meals.

Ms Barumba says they were given breakfast, lunch, evening tea and evening meal.
“None of us expected the five star treatment, but they did the best they could. We had water, food,” she recounts.
Ms Barumba wanted to leave the hospital and thus made her own initiatives to help her recover faster. This included steaming, taking warm water with ginger, lemon and honey.
“I would take hot fluids; get checked, work out. I went with a laptop which initially I thought would be for entertainment but I ended up researching more about the disease, talking to my fellow patients how they were doing and that is how I wrote my article,” she says.
However, she decried the information leaks in the Ministry of Health. She says on different occasions, people knew the details of the confirmed cases even before the patients arrived at the hospital.

Ms Barumba says one of the stressing things in being in hospital is getting cut off from the outside world. She recounts she felt so isolated that she had trouble getting sleep when she had just got into hospital.
Ms Barumba says coronavirus patients even in hospital suffer stigma because of what is happening in the public.
Even after they are discharged, they face stigma which has left some of them abandon their homes.
On different occasions, she said the public has referred to coronavirus patients as criminals. Due to the stigma, Ms Barumba was forced to come out while still a patient in hospital to speak for her fellow patients who were suffering stigma.
“I can handle bullies but there are those whose livelihoods have been affected. It is very unsettling to see fellow countrymen in a time of crisis treating Covid-19 patients as criminal suspects,” Ms Barumba said.

Stigma
She says before she was tested, she received calls from different people who knew she had travelled, telling her to go and test while others even blamed her.
When she recovered, some people called to warn the chairman of the estate, where she lives, about her return. She wonders where they expected her to go. However, she says the chairman was a reasonable man.
She recalls while in quarantine, some MPs went on radio stations and uttered discriminatory statements on patients.

“There was a lady in my ward, their MP went on radio saying these are people who brought the disease in my constituency. People went to their homes harassing the family. Her husband was discharged first and the couple lived in Masaka. Imagine they went on radio mentioning their names. It was horrible. There are many patients with such horrible stories,” Ms Barumba says.
The inhuman discrimination of coronavirus patients has inspired Ms Barumba to speak out for them.
“While I was a patient, people were making remarks about me. The first case was treated so inhumanly. People were wishing death upon him, were harsh. I also knew that could also be my fate,” she explains.
Ms Barumba urged government not to only focus on prevention and control but also address the issue of stigma.

Her treatment
While in Dubai, Ms Barumba had cough but thought it was just a normal cough and had body weakness too and mild flu.
Few days in hospital, most of her symptoms had vanished and thus no more medication was given to her.
“It depends on symptoms and preexisting conditions. Personally, I had flu and cough, that’s what they were treating, but when it cleared, they got me off the medication. As soon as I was symptom-free I was just in hospital counting down the days,” Ms Barumba says.
She said eventually, her body fought off the coronavirus, and medicine given to her to boost her immunity to fight the symptoms. “Coronavirus presents differently in different people. At the end of the day, it is the body that fights the disease. Assist your immunity to fight the symptoms that are presenting, then you will be fine,” she says.
[email protected]