Minister Aceng warns hospital directors about new vehicles

Kampala, Uganda |  THE INDEPENDENT |  The Minister of Health, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng has warned administrators of regional referral and district hospitals against misuse of government property especially the  vehicles. 

She said while districts of Buyende and Kaliro had earlier been given brand new double cabin picks to facilitate immunization activities in their areas, the vehicles didn’t make it to the hospital. She said the one of Buyende was crashed beyond repair at the hands of a reckless driver.  

The Minister revealed this on Tuesday evening as the Ministry of Health flagged off 28 double cabin pickup vehicles to support immunization activities in the different regions across the country which were received as a donation from the Global Vaccines Alliance, GAVI.

In this round of donation, GAVI has offered 71 vehicles for immunization activities that include transporting vaccines and staff, a lot that supplements 62 other vehicles that the vaccines agency had offered to the country in 2016. 

But, the Minister says the first lot of cars are because of ill maintenance are broken down and can no longer serve their purpose. As a result, she notes, while these would have come in handy to help with the challenges created by the Coronavirus disease pandemic, she said in many areas immunization activities have gone down to the lows of 50%.

The Ministry of Health has already announced that they are planning a catch up immunization campaign to cater for the disruptions caused by the lockdown on public transport that led to some mothers failing to take their children to receive jabs. 

On her part, Health Ministry Permanent Secretary Dr. Diana Atwiine said the cars arrived at a cost of $1.5million whereby while the rest go to the hospitals, one will be retained at the Ministry headquarters to run activities of the Uganda National Expanded Programme on Immunisation (UNEPI).  She said apart from immunisation related work, the vehicles will also be used for COVID-19 related work.

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