Tale of Ebola Virus Disease survivor

At exactly 9am, Wilber Byaruhanga, 45 is at home busy washing his children’s clothes as he keeps checking on food he is preparing for his children in the kitchen.

Byaruhanga is a resident of Kakyindo Trading Centre, Kabarungi Village, Bugogo Town Council in Kyegegwa District, a village which made headlines when the outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease was announced in the district.

“I am busy with domestic work, my late wife used to do this kind of work, but now I have to carry on since she died of Ebola on September 25 at Mubende Regional Referral Hospital,” he narrates.

Since the death of his wife Fabis Naturinda, 38,  the home is quiet as  few people come by because they are afraid of getting infected with Ebola survivors.

How it started

Byaruhanga says on September 11, with his wife, they were going about their domestic chores when  Michael Rutabasibwa, a neighbour came panting and begging Naturinda to attend to an emergency.

“It was around 9am, we were weeding our garden near our home, when Michael, our neighbour requested that my wife goes to attend to his sick child. I obliged,” he recounts.

The eight- year-old Denise Kyomugisha, now deceased, was a granddaughter to Verontina Kobugigi who had come from Madudu Sub-County in Mubende District where there was an Ebola outbreak. At the time it had not yet been confirmed.

Byaruhanga says the child from Madudu had been bleeding from the nose and complained of severe neck pain and nobody knew what the child was suffering from.

“Since my wife had been a renowned traditional healer for years, Kobugigi believed her granddaughter was bewitched and needed my wife’s quick intervention. My wife inserted her bare fingers in the child’s nostril, her hands were smeared with blood. She never used gloves,” he recalls.

Naturinda did her best but Kyomugisha continued bleeding and she referred the child to the nearest clinic in Rwibaale after which she was referred to Mubende  Hospital.

Byaruhanga says on that same day, the eight-year-old died on her way to Mubende. Her body was brought back for burial, the following day.

Wife falls sick

The child was buried traditionally and all mourners including all those from Madudu in Mubende District attended but said at that time none of them knew that there was an Ebola outbreak in Mubende.

“A week later, on  the night of September 20, my wife developed a fever, headache and high body temperature. I bought anti-malarial tablets and paracetamol which she took , there was no improvement,” he says.

The following morning he sent her to a private clinic in Rwibaale where two injections were administered but still there was no improvement.

“On September 21, our Town Council chairman Swaibu Balekye, called our neighbour informing him that all the people who attended the burial of the eight-year-old had died of Ebola. My wife was scared,” he says.

But according to the Ministry of Health, the child had died before testing for Ebola although her mother died of  the disease and, she is counted as a probable case.

Byaruhanga says at the grandmother of the deceased Kobugigi and her son  Rutabasibwa were ill with signs and symptoms of Ebola.

“When they told us the child was suspected to have died of Ebola, none of us knew about the disease but we had heard some time back that it is a deadly disease. I was scared. Our local leaders started looking for an ambulance to take her to hospital,” he shares.

Evacuation

When the ambulance came, together with his wife and their neighbours (Kobugigi and Rutabasibwa) were all evacuated to Mubende hospital. They reached there at around 11pm.

“I was very scared because of my wife’s the situation. I got paranoid. I thought that I was also infected because we were sharing a bed. Unfortunately, after reaching Mubende we were only given beds  but the doctors seemed too busy to attend to us,” he recollects.

On September 22, at around 6pm doctors took samples from Naturinda and her husband. However, her condition had started deteriorating and she had started vomiting.

Five hours later, the doctors took the couple to another isolation ward where they started receiving treatment which included drips.

“With my wife we spent two days in the same isolation room. On the third day, doctors took me to another isolation ward where I found my neighbours, and they assured me that  they would manage my wife’s condition.(By the time I left the ward, she could not talk and she was vomiting profusely),” he says adding that it was not before long that Rutabasibwa was taken to the same isolation unit as Naturinda.

Deteriorates

Byaruhanga called  Rutabasibwa’s phone and asked to speak to his wife and Naturinda told him that she was not responding to treatment.

“The last words she said to me were, “Mwaami I am not fine. I am not feeling well”. Rutabasibwa told me that fell  from the bed and nobody was there to help her,” he says.

This left him pessimistic of his wife’s recovery. On September 25, at around 8pm, Byaruhanga received a phone call from Rutabasibwa telling him that his wife had passed on.

“I could not go back to the ward to see her because the doctors would not allow me. I was traumatised,” he says.

Byaruhanga says the following day as he wanted to leave the isolation unit but he met doctors with his youngest daughter of five years at the entrance. Medical workers had evacuated her from their village after she presented with symptoms of Ebola.

“People in the village did not tell me that my child had also been evacuated to Mubende; they thought I would develop hypertension,” he says.

His daughter had a fever and diarrhoea. However, tests turned out negative.

“I started nursing my child. We were in isolation and doctors said she had malaria which they treated. At that time, my wife’s remains were still in the mortuary but my father and brother had started making arrangements for burial,” he says.

“I was getting tired of being in hospital. I felt too stressed, especially that I had lost my wife and my daughter was also admitted.”

Together with his daughter on September 27 they were discharged from the facility but they spent two more days waiting for the discharge forms and an ambulance to transport them back home.

“When doctors discharged me they made us spend more two day sleeping outside the isolation ward under the tent in the cold, ”he says, adding “The  ambulance they promised us never turned up and we ended up boarding a taxi  back home on September 29.”

He imagines that had doctors given them their discharge form early, he would have attended his wife’s burial.

Burial

 Byaruhanga says his wife was buried at her father’s place because at that time he was in hospital and there was no one at his home to manage burial arrangements.

“I missed burying my wife though they used an Ebola burial team, I would have stood at  a distance and seen her coffin. My father and brother made the burial arrangements. Life is hard for me,” he says.

The couple had seven children with their eldest being 22 years old and  the youngest with  five years. But, he says on returning from hospital, his three children had stopped going to school because he failed to raise school fees.

For one week he has spent without his wife, a lot has changed.

“I am a peasant farmer. I have many gardens but they are now bushy. I do not know where to start , I have no money to keep my children  in  school. I have asked them to stay home until I raise their tuition,” he shares.

According to the Ministry of Health, by Sunday Kyegegwa District had three confirmed cases of Ebola where one person died, one was still admitted and another  been discharged.

Others say

Village chairman for Kabarungi, Mr Philip Baguma, says; “When we received the news of Naturinda’s death, we had to make simple arrangements because it was the medical burial team who took the lead. The role of the locals was to only dig the grave,” he says.

The Kyegegwa district health officer, Tedson Kandole, says for all survivors of Ebola, the district taskforce will continue monitoring them and their families for 21 days to see if there any complaints.