Dilapidated health centre struggles to attract patients

A health centre II housed in a former post-colonial veterinary office s struggling to stand on its feet or attract patients due to its remote location and state.

The one-roomed building was a staff house for tsetse fly control and veterinary services until 1980 when it started housing Bukaleba Health Centre II in Bukatube Sub-county, Mayuge District, according to Mr Thomas Loyep, 60, who worked with the defunct organisation at the time.

According to Mr Loyep, the room was turned into a health centre II after heavy rains washed away the then existing one.

“Authorities at the time decided to turn the veterinary office into the health centre,” Mr Loyep, who currently works as the security guard at the health facility, said at the weekend.

The facility, whose photos have widely been shared on social media, however, remains unrecognisable, even to the Ministry of Health.

“I really don’t know whether it is a health facility; someone just shared it,” Mr Emmanuel Ainebyoona, the ministry spokesperson, said when contacted.

Ms Racheal Buwaguzibwa, a midwife at the facility, says she saw the photo last Friday after someone shared it; however, she wasn’t happy because the wrong one was being shared.

According to her, the widely-shared photo is not of the actual health facility, but of a solar-powered room, in which a fridge containing polio, measles and other vaccines are stored. The same room, she adds, also acts as staff quarters.

Ms Buwaguzibwa says a new health facility with a patients’ waiting area, the in-charge office and store was constructed, adding that the facility offers outpatient department (OPD), maternity, antenatal, family planning and immunisation services, although it has been shunned.

“Patients only come on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, while only one showed up on Friday,” Ms Buwaguzibwa said, adding that the facility has four staff; an in-charge, herself, security guard and cleaner.

Ms Buwaguzibwa says for the past three years, she has only assisted in the delivery of one baby, and that was in July.

“This is because of the presence of many traditional birth attendants (TBAs). Several women come for antenatal visits, but don’t return for deliveries yet we later find them with babies when we go for outreaches,” Ms Buwaguzibwa added.

She said the facility serves the villages of Bukaleba, Lukindu, Ndokero and Wamondo; and landing sites of Nakalanga and Walumbe.

She appealed to the government for immediate intervention, saying they need staff quarters and a place to deliver.

“We currently deliver from a couch which is adjacent to the patients’ waiting area, but assuming patents are there?” she wondered