COVID-19 patients blocked from fleeing Jinja hospital isolation centre

Jinja, Uganda |  THE INDEPENDENT |  Police were heavily deployed at the Jinja Regional Referral Hospital as COVID-19 patients attempted to flee from the isolation centre.  

The patients were protesting the poor living conditions at the centre, late meals, poor sanitation and delayed results. The patients further challenged the absence of guards at the facility which does not have a perimeter wall to protect them from intruders and the lack of psychosocial support. 

One of the patients said that he had tested negative twice but was never discharged and instead, he was told that his first test was faulty. He says that new patients share the same ward with their counterparts who have spent 10-days in the facility which to him has created stigma in the ward.

Another patient says that he led a two-day hunger strike on Monday and Tuesday after the hospital authorities declined to discharge him after testing negative for COVID-19.

One of the patients asked the government to investigate operations of the Tororo based COVID-19 laboratory because cases of faulty results are weighing out on the already stressed patients. 

Florence Tugumusirize, the hospital director says that all patients will undergo another COVID-19 test but declined to divulge details. But Kiira region police spokesperson Abbey Ngako said that patients have all agreed to take samples for another test before they are discharged. 

********

URN