Our national priorities are heartbreaking

This week, the executive Director of Uganda Heart Institute made a disturbing revelation before Parliament’s Committee on Health. According to Dr. John Omagino, 500 babies requiring heart surgery are at risk if at least Shs20bilion is not provided to set up the Intensive Care Unit.  The 500 are part of a bigger number of 16,000 who are born with heart complications every year.

According to the latest estimates released by the United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME), an estimated 5 million children died before their fifth birthday.

The sad fact is not that we cannot afford to save the infants but it is that as doctors are scrambling to find funds and explaining themselves to the powers that be, someone even dares to perceive a plan to buy an acre of land in Kisenyi at Shs37b. Multiply that by 10 acres and you have enough money to set up and recruit staff for two treatment centres with all the required facilities to manage heart conditions in this country. But no. I am willing to bet that the land deal will be concluded before we figure out where to get funds to save children’s lives.

Not very far away, the staff at the Uganda Cancer Institute have just concluded a sit-down strike over delayed salaries. The salaries in question may not even add up to shs1b based on today’s rates. And yet doctors and teachers are always striking over pay. Over these small monies, doctors will be manhandled if they so much as attempt a peaceful protest on the streets. We prefer to buy and stock tear gas to quell any signs of dissent than putting together the cash to pay health professionals who worked under difficult conditions during the Covid-19 outbreak.

If we are still unable to pay health workers who offered a service at least two years ago, I am not hopeful that we shall find the money to set up the treatment centres needed to manage heart conditions today, and the cycle continues. We become part of the global statistics where children do not make it to their fifth birthday or very far beyond it.  We can speak all day about Sustainable Development Goals and not mean any of the things we say because those who have decision-making powers can be incredibly selfish sometimes.

What if some of that money being used to support an overwhelmingly large Parliament and its demands is channeled into developing facilities that will give tomorrow’s leaders a fighting chance? True, we may not be the richest country on the planet but our priorities are so misplaced.

The things that benefit a few are hurriedly approved in spite of the loud protests and protestations of the many. The small matters that are relevant to the many are relegated to the bottom of the list and ignored in heartbreaking fashion.  

Surely, why should it take the pleas of the executive director of Uganda Heart Institute for the authorities to understand issues that should already have been taken up and spearheaded by the mother Ministry? Why should it take a strike by the employees of the Uganda Cancer Institute for us to pay attention to matters of life and death? It seems that all we are left to do is wish to the moon that the people who make these unfavourable decisions will one day find themselves in need of the services they do not prioritise.

We do not wish to be reduced to wizards wishing others ill. Lead us not into temptation of cursing those who misspend our funds.  

Angella Nampewo is a writer, editor and communications consultant    

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