Soroti ambulance turned into garbage truck

SOROTI

Police on Sunday raided Kassam Service Centre in Soroti District where they recovered an ambulance being remodelled into a pickup truck to collect garbage.

The ambulance belonging to Soroti Regional Referral Hospital was reportedly involved in an accident along Tirinyi road in 2014 and had been parked at the hospital yard until January 2016 when it was taken to the garage for remodeling.

Mr Abdullah Latif, the director of Kassam Service Centre, reveals that the ambulance was delivered to their garage by a Soroti Hospital Administrator in January this year with instructions to rebuild it into a pickup vehicle that would in-turn be used for garbage collection inside the hospital premises.

“The ambulance was to be sold off but the hospital management thought it wise to make use of it for collecting garbage,” Mr Latif said.

In an operation led by the Soroti District Police Commander, Moses Ochieng, the private secretary to the President in charge of political affairs and mobilization, Mr Dan Mulalu, it was also found out that despite the ambulance being out of service, hospital authorities have been withdrawing fuel and using it for their personal cars.

The East Kyoga police spokesperson, Michael Odongo said that the hospital authorities must explain how the said ambulance found its way into garage yet fuel was being withdrawn on its account.

“The hospital management has been drawing fuel on the account of the ambulance yet it is grounded here (at the garage), we have opened an inquiry file against the hospital, we want the officers at the hospital and garage to make statements at police on how the ambulance reached the garage,” Mr Odongo said.

Mr Mulalu argues that administration of Soroti Regional Referral Hospital is wrong to convert the ambulance into a garbage pickup when patients in the region keep yearning for better health transport services.

According to Mulalu, Soroti Regional Referral Hospital administration under the knowledge of its director Dr Emmanuel Paul Batiibwe went ahead to requisition fuel for grounded vehicles parked at the garages for repair.

By press time, the director, Dr Batiibwe was out of office on official duty in Kampala.

The acting director Dr Joseph Epodoi said he could not comment claiming that the matter was fragile and administrative and that only the director himself would answer.

Sr Juliet Ademun, the weekend hospital superintendent who took journalists around the hospital instead castigated the Soroti Municipal council authorities of failing to collect garbage in time.