The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Buvuma, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | If for whatever reason you find yourself on Buvuma Islands district, pray that you don’t get admitted to hospital for you may not be comfortable having to lie side by side with a dead body should a patient near you die and the relatives take long to collect it.
The local people in Buvuma district together with the health workers who see this scenario often at Kitamiiro health centre IV are decrying the lack of a mortuary which is causing them trauma staying with dead bodies in the same ward for long hours.
Claire Namuweera, a resident at Kitamiiro cell in Buvuma town council says she will never forget the night she spent at the facility and one of the patients died.
Namuweera recalls that deep in the night, she was shocked waking up only to see a fellow patient they had spent the day with in ward already dead and the body being given services of the last offices but again left in the ward until morning when the relatives picked it.
She adds that for her sister who was attending to her, she was even forced to leave the ward and spend the remaining hours at the verandah despite the fact that it was raining.
Richard Mawayira, residing from Maggyo village in Nairambi sub-county says it is so discouraging to have a district which would be having a fully-fledged hospital only having one health centre IV but also in a very sorry state lacking some of the essential services.
The assistant officer in charge of Kitamiiro health centre IV, John Bunjo also admits that for a patient seeing a fellow patient losing life and being kept in the same room causes anxiety which can sometimes lead to death before the real cause of the illness that led to the admission of that person.
Buvuma Constituency Member of Parliament, Robert Migadde Ndugwa says that he addressed the lack of a mortuary at Kitamiiro health centre IV and other health related challenges before Parliament and the Minister for Health was tasked to visit Buvuma and find out the truth behind his submissions.
Migadde tells Uganda Radio Network that indeed, the State Minister for Health by then, Sarah Opendi visited the islands and recommended at least a container to be provided as soon as possible to work as a mortuary but the recommendation was not fulfilled.
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