Healthcare: Why our politicians don’t care

If only Ugandan politicians go through what we ordinary Ugandans go through to be able to get treatment aboard maybe then we would long have had up to date modern hospitals in Kampala.

I have personally witnessed the VIP treatment these connected big shots get from Entebbe airport to Apollo Hospital in India and back to Uganda. From Entebbe airport they fly Business or first class, when they get to the hospital they are admitted in luxurious private rooms, they also get to fly with their private nurse and some relatives too.

While admitted, they’re privileged because their relatives or friends fly over to visit them whenever they have time, not money but time. They get the best of the best treatment and their medical bill, private nurse, relatives flights are all fully paid for by the government not forgetting upkeep money.

Meanwhile poor Ugandan like me, when we were told that my late husband needed to be treated in India, the doctor connected us to Apollo Hospital and we needed Shs40m for treatment. It took us about two months to raise that money from family, friends and in-laws. My late husband was suffering from cancer that needed immediate operation. Two months was so long the tumor was rapidly growing.  

We made it to India both of us in our late 20s by then.  He was admitted in a semi private room that had curtains, the semi-private room had a patient bed a very small walk through space then a hard couch that I slept on for almost three months. When we arrived at the hospital my late husband had to undergo fresh medical examination for almost a week or so because the scan we took with us I can best explain it like a nursery drawing so difficult to tell whether the kid drew a man or woman or even a human being.

Anyway the doctor had estimated our stay there to be only for a month unfortunately my late husband condition worsen and we ended up staying in India for almost three months. During our stay there we were at some point denied medical treatment and held hostage because we hadn’t paid some medical bills. I called my family, in-laws, and friends and luckily a rich Ugandan friend of the in-laws paid all the pending bills.

Worries and stress of seeing my late husband condition worsen made me lose all my weight and become so fragile too. My late husband’s oncologist got a counsellor for me. We were also blessed to have had some Indian Catholic family whom we were introduced to occasionally visit us in the hospital and hosted us at their house until my late husband was physically able to fly back to Uganda.

On our second visit a friend introduced me to her uncle (RIP) who passed on upon arrival back in Uganda. He was also admitted to the same hospital with us and he was one of those big entitled Ugandans.

Through him I also got to meet other entitled Ugandans who were either on treatment or had gone to visit a relative or friend. We also got the opportunity to go and spend time in his luxurious private room, her late uncle normally invited us and we always looked forward to spending time in his luxury room. Unlike us, he always had someone from Uganda visiting him bi-weekly. And in between his private nurse flew back to Uganda to check on her family.

The private nurse too had her own private room with a nice bed and a very nice living room next to the patient room. Their living condition in the hospital is what I would compare to five star hotel treatment.

We were in India twice and on one of our journeys back, I travelled in the same transit bus with a Ugandan VIP.  That was in Dubai I don’t know which country he was from. He was on a wheelchair so I imagined he too was from some form of treatment. We were in the same transit bus because my husband and the now late VIP where using wheelchairs. They both were tired and fragile, the VIP flew in private while my late husband and I flew on what our family, friends and relatives would afford, economy class.

Very uncomfortable flight I remember but we were relieved we were going back to our children and family whom we hadn’t seen in months.

I think if these privileged and entitled Ugandans have to go through what we ordinary Ugandans go through for months of fundraising while the patients conditions worsen, to getting  treatment in a foreign country with no assured source of money, to living in very harsh conditions both patients and care giver, to having no visitors while admitted for a week to months, to using a shared bathroom and toilets with everyone every day, to not  having your own TV to tune to your own programme to watch, not mentioning being able to eat the kind of  food you want if you’re lucky to even have money to buy some other food other than the hospital food, then maybe Uganda would by now have a standard hospital.

The privileged have no worries. The government takes care of them, their family and all their expenses while they are out on treatment so why should they even think about us and what we go through to get good.

Janet Mcalpine,  [email protected]