Slums: Government should build decent toilets

What you need to know:

The issue: Pit-latrines
Our view: Why the government should intervene and construct decent communal toilets and bathrooms.

Uganda is no stranger to disease outbreaks that come due to poor sanitation. Only three years ago, the Ministry of Health and Kampala Capital City Authority, confirmed a typhoid outbreak in Kampala. The assistant commissioner in-charge of epidemiology and epidemic diseases, said investigations had revealed people were being infected through what they ate or drunk. The cause of infection was suspected to be a contaminated drinking water source around the affected areas.
In January, ministry of Health confirmed that seven people had been affected by cholera and one person had died in Kampala as a result of the disease. While touring some of areas in Kampala where there was an outbreak, Dr Joyce Moriku Kaducu, the State Minister for Primary Healthcare, had attributed the outbreak to poor sanitation as well as poor hygiene in the area.

She noted that they only came across two pit-latrines in the entire area and worse still, they were locked. It was noted at the time that Kampala City had only 16 public toilets.
This was alarming then as it is today after reading media stories that slum dwellers are struggling to cope without toilets. With the ever increasing population in slums, living without proper disposal of human waste should be a cause for concern. Besides being an inconvenience, it is also one of the quickest way to spread disease.
Most slums do not have access to clean water sources or food and yet they are highly populated with children numbers being even higher than adults. In Nsooba East Village in Mulago II, Kampala, the area chairperson says there are only five toilets serving more than 3,000 residents. He adds that the toilets that were constructed in 2002 have since been declared out of use.

Uganda is known for responding after a disaster. However, hardly does the government do enough to plan and keep disasters at bay. But we do not have to wait for an outbreak to make interventions. Without toilets, residents resort to unhealthy means of disposing of their waste such as using drainage channels and defecating in polythene bags which they throw then in open spaces.

People who dwell in slums are low income earners and may, therefore, not be in position to construct own decent pit-latrines. This is why the government should intervene and construct decent communal toilets and bathrooms in slum areas. It should also make sure that they are always kept in good hygiene.