Hospital staff, patients raise money for drugs
Inside the new administration block at Kawolo General Hospital in Lugazi Town, Buikwe District. PHOTO | HERBERT MUGAGGA
What you need to know:
- Ms Juliet Namazzi, one of the people who have benefited from this initiative dubbed Sonda, a Luganda word which means contribute, said she nearly lost her daughter because she did not have the money to buy the drugs prescribed for her.
Following the government’s delay to deliver drugs to Kawolo General Hospital in Buikwe District, medical staff and patients at the facility have resolved to contribute money to buy drugs to save lives of desperate patients, mainly children.
The humanitarian initiative comes after National Medical Stores (NMS) failed to deliver medical supplies to the hospital last Friday as promised.
The facility handles patients from as far as the districts of Buvuma, Mukono, Kayunga and Jinja due to its strategic location on Jinja- Kampala highway. However, it last received drugs in November 2022, according to the district health officer, Dr Richard Bbosa. He said the hospital has, in the last couple of months, been “surviving on God’s mercy”.
Both staff and patients at the facility said they have decided to use their meagre resources to buy drugs and save lives of patients who are in critical condition.
“It is a voluntary and temporary measure we have come up with so as to save lives. Sometimes we get cases where, for example, a poor mother comes with a very sick child requiring urgent attention yet the drugs are not in our stores,” one of the nurses in the children’s ward, who preferred anonymity to speak freely about the situation, said in an interview on Wednesday. She added: “It is such a time that we as nurses start running around begging for money from our colleagues and some willing patients and caregivers to buy drugs and rescue such patients.”
Ms Juliet Namazzi, one of the people who have benefited from this initiative dubbed Sonda, a Luganda word which means contribute, said she nearly lost her daughter because she did not have the money to buy the drugs prescribed for her.
“I was in a state of despair but the nurses here and other Good Samaritans at this hospital contributed money, which bought medicines from a clinic in Lugazi Town,” Ms Namazzi, who had a sick child, said.
She hailed the medical staff at Kawolo General Hospital for their kindness.
Dr Joshua Kiberu, the hospital medical superintendent, said his staff are struggling to keep the hospital running.
“Sometimes you dig deep into your pockets to ensure a life is saved. We really need medical supplies as soon as possible,” he said.
Lugazi Central Division Mayor Khemis Lutajan asked the government to ensure timely delivery of drugs to hospitals.
“I have been to that hospital [Kawolo hospital] several times and each time I go there, I come out shading tears because of the appalling situation. Something needs to be done urgently,” Mayor Lutajan said.
He hailed the medical staff at the hospital for doing their best to save lives.
We could not get hold of Ms Sheila Nduhukire, the NMS spokesperson, to respond despite our repeated calls and WhatsApp messages on her known phone contacts. But in an interview with this newspaper earlier this month, Ms Nduhukire said: “The delays in the distribution of the medicines have largely been as a result of lack of timely payment of funds for distribution. These issues have been brought to the attention of the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and Ministry of Health.”
She added: “We are confident that they will be resolved soon so that we can deliver the medicines as we have always done before.”
Kawolo hospital, like many others across the country, has been operating without medical supplies for several weeks. Although the NMS started distributing drugs about a fortnight ago, some health facilities have not received their consignments, with Kawolo being one of those.
The hospital is among the public health facilities, which benefited from a recent refurbishment programme that saw the existing structures renovated and new ones constructed.
Among the new facilities constructed at the hospital include a trauma centre, a modern mortuary, new out-patient block, four staff houses and two operating theatres.
The hospital serves more than 1.3 million people from neighbouring districts annually. Records indicate that the facility receives more than five accident victims daily, but it has one functional ambulance.
A civil society organisation, Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development (Cehurd), last week, dragged government to High Court in Kampala for failure to send essential drugs to public hospitals.
