Ministry should address plight of paediatric units

On Thursday last week, three pre-term babies passed on at Kawempe Referral Hospital. It was yet another addition to the spiraling statistics of unnecessary deaths that could have been avoided.
Authorities at Kawempe and Mulago hospitals have been giving conflicting accounts of circumstances under which the deaths occurred.

While those at Kawempe had indicated that the deaths occurred after the oxygen in the cylinder they were sharing ran out, the spokesperson of Mulago Hospital, Mr Enoch Kusasira, has since dismissed this saying intensive care units never run out of oxygen.

The circumstances under which these deaths occurred was very disturbing, but even more disturbing is the blame- game that followed and the conspicuous silence of the Ministry of Health and other people in government.

What the public out there expects and needs to hear from these health workers are reassurances that such deaths that smack of carelessness and lack of professionalism will not occur again.

The public also needs, as a matter of urgency, to hear from its elected leaders and the army of government workers sustained by taxpayers, about what is being done to address the pathetic state of Uganda’s maternal, newborn and child health.

Statistics from the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) 2016 and the 2016/2017 Annual Health Sector Review report, cast very gloomy pictures.

The 2016/2017 Annual Health Sector Review report puts infant mortality at 35 per 1,000 while the UDHS 2016 shows that the country loses 85,000 children under the age of five per year. Some of the deaths have been blamed on a range of complications, including childhood acute respiratory infections, fevers, and diarrhoea.

At the same time, facilities in most of the pediatric departments of our hospitals have been found wanting. It is not strange to find between three and four sick babies sharing a small bed, while their minders and attendants scramble for the little space between the beds.

In light of this and last week’s deaths in Kawempe, one would have expected the Ministry of Health, to announce that it is to carry out an investigation into the circumstances under which those children died.
It would have also been expected to make public the measures that it is taking to address the congestion and chronic shortages of drugs and sundries in hospitals and paediatric units around the country.

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