{UAH} Dr.Ssendagire:UNDER AMIN MEDICINE WAS A FULL TIME THING IN HOSPITALS BUT PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT SHORTAGE OF SUGAR?

Dr.Ibra Ssendagire,
Thanks for yours below. You aren't the only one who has been fed with lies about Amin. Many of us were victims of anti-Amin propaganda. It's like someone, somewhere was doing everything possible to control this information to reach out to the younger generation.

Yes, the guy had weakness that were/ are well known, but he also largely did a lot for the country. His kids should start up a kind of Idi Amin foundation.

In our political education classes at Kibuli S.S, our teacher, Mr.Mugume, mainly presented and discussed the negative side of Amin, but going by his age, he must have been an adult during Amin's time. Why were they intentionally presenting only one side of Amin? I wonder!

I really intend to ask him a lot of questions if I ever get a chance to meet him again. Anybody has his contacts?

Do we still have the "general paper" sessions at A levels in schools? If we still do, I suggest that teachers start open debates about stuff like this. There's lot of information on UAH that could potentially be useful for colleges in Uganda. Students should be encouraged to be open minded in classes about things being taught. Teachers shouldn't be afraid of being challenged! I don't see any harm in this.

Abbey

On 2 May 2014 07:33, "Ibrah Sendagire" <ibrahsendagire@hotmail.com> wrote:

Asalaam Alaikum, brothers and sisters.

Being a medic I would not like to leave the issue of medicines raised by the wonderful Edward Mulindwa in small prints. Kindly allow me to this point the prominence it deserves. It is quite an astounding achievement that a government under sanctions or siege from several quarters so very ably assured the availability of medicines, drugs and supplies in all government health facilities from dispensaries to hospitals. We are learning from Mulindwa that all these supplies were flown in as our neighbours had blocked passage of goods destined to Uganda through their countries. My goodness!! to fly in medicines, fuel and other critical supplies daily was no mean achievement. It is an amazing performance. First the decision to fly in medicines (and not sugar or salt) shows a person of with high IQ and integrity who reasoned that his people may die without medicines but would not die without sugar or salt. They would rather line up for sugar and salt but not for medicines;  a very wise decision from a very wise man.        

I must confess that I started having a clear understanding of things when Amin was already overthrown. I have grown up seeing not enough medicines and supplies in hospitals. I thought it was the norm never to have enough drugs and supplies in our health facilities. I grew up being told to buy the drugs from the pharmacies or drugshops outside the hospitals. I joined one of Uganda's medical schools and the story continued. One of our unwritten responsibilities as medical students were to transcribe the medicines prescribed by the consultant on to small pieces of paper which the attendants would take to go and buy the medicines from outside the hospital. And when I came out of the medical school and started practicing medicine the same story continued in government settings. You prescribe thrice, in the medical charts, formal hospital prescription sheets and then also on the small chits of paper you then give the patient or patient's attendant to go and get the medicines from outside. And mark you it is not only medicine you write: what you write on a small piece of paper may include one or several of the following: syringes & needles, IV cannulas if required, urinary catheters, urinary bags and naso-gastric tubes if your patient is to be fed through the tube. As a medic you even even don't want to look the attendant into the face for two reasons; because one deep inside your heart, you already know that this person can not afford it; and two the person could easily ask for money from you the doctor to go and by medicines. With a monthly salary of only UG Shs 700,000/= (less than USD 300), the doctor can also ill afford to spare even few coins, otherwise his family would miss the next meal. So both the patient and the doctors are all losers in this health system. Yet somewhere across town the driver of one of the Executive Directors in the country takes home UG Shs 7,000,000/= monthly which was happily approved and defended by the current leadership in the country. The driver earns ten times the medical doctor toiling to save life amidst no medicines and supplies. Our priorities as a country are either upside down or are intended to remain that way. back to the medicines. If these medicines and supplies are available in the open market: in the private pharmacies, drug shops or medical stores name it, why aren't these things put in our hospital or health facilities? They are not coming from across the borders. They are not being airlifted? What is the problem. This possibly shows a lack of commitment on the part of the managers of this country or lack of understanding and suffering for the common man.

After Mulindwa's initial post supporting Idi Amin, someone told us to look at the economic figures during Amin's time and today. What do those figures have tell us when we know the wealth of the country may be concentrated in only a few hands. What sense can we make of those figures when people can not access the medicines they require. A quick excuse one would give is that the medics are selling or siphoning off the medicines and supplies. OK, if we were to take that argument and accept that this to be part of the problem (which is by the way very negligible), let us do the analysis; apportion it a generous 10% as the attributable cause of the scarcity of medicines in our hospitals and health facilities. Where is the other 90% of the problem. The answer is clear. The medicines and supplies are just not being provided.

Stocking our health facilities with sufficient medicines and supplies has eluded all the regimes that came after the fall of Idi Amin's regime for now coming to nearly three decades (excuse my poor mathematics if I am wrong). Yet Amin stocked the hospitals and dispensaries for all the time he was in power despite all the sabotage and sanctions the country had to contend with during the time. At that time only few countries were manufacturing drugs i.e. USA, Canada, UK, and Germany. So the drugs must have been very, very expensive. And yet the best and high quality drugs were flown in. Today several countries (India, Pakistan, Kenya including our own) manufacture medicines and supplies. But we can not acheive sufficient stocks in our hospitals. Do we have internal sanctions in place preventing adequate stocks in hospitals and health centres? What is happening?

We can now clearly appreciate that the person of Idi Amin Dada deserves a meritorious lifetime achievement award (even if posthumously) for having maintained a sound health system despite heavy sanctions and sabotage obtaining during his time as President. Some one will quickly dilute my proposal with the question of what about the killings? I was too young to understand this. But we have already been enlightened by Mr. Mulindwa Edward that some of the gruesome killings could be traced back to the Ugandan exiles who were actively trying to create a bad image of Amin's regime. And to that end some of us have already got part of the answer as to why our loved ones disappeared with out trace and why others were murdered in cold blood. Fabricating bogus evidence and planting it the hands of the intelligence officers of that time was not only heartless but also a betrayal of the innocent Ugandans who lost their lives. Allow me to end on that sad note of our history.

Ibrah

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Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 05:06:32 +0100
Subject: {UMBS} UNDER AMIN MEDICINE WAS A FULL TIME THING IN HOSPITALS BUT PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT SHORTAGE OF SUGAR?
From: abbeysemuwemba@gmail.com
To: uganda-muslim-brothers-and-sisters@googlegroups.com
CC: mulindwa@look.ca

Friends,

I don't need to resale Iddi Amin he sold himself very well and those that knew him understand him perfectly and miss him. There are people that were educated that Amin was a tyrant those never bother to even explain to, for you will not change them. What I am writing is to educate those that were ...not available at a time, who were not adult and who have leant about their history from New York Times, and all I am stating is that there is a larger story on Iddi Amin than told. What you have asked me to explain I have already responded to, but I will recap.

{a} Why the disappearance of people.

If Amin knew that you wanted to go after his government you were a dead meat, and I am not here to deny that, he had a very good intelligence network and it made him survive that long, let us not forget that Museveni tried to assassinate him in Nsambya and it was a very close call. But so were many that were sitting only in Tanzania who wanted their hands on Uganda and today they have it. But I have also stated that the people that ran to Tanzania as Ocen Nekyon killed so many Ugandans in the name of spoiling Amin's name. They came to Uganda on many times or used their contacts in Uganda on many times to murder people so that the name of Amin gets on the first page of western countries. This is the very battle Mugabe is fighting in Zimbabwe you see to an African killing a fellow African to make a point is a joke, they will go after each other as long as they get the western support. Your daily going after Iddi Amin is referred. Until when The Ocen Nekyons stand up and face up to Ugandans to explain who they murdered and who they did not murder, the title of Amin murdered people becomes very muddy.

{b} Why sugar could not enter the country and yet military hardware was able to.

There were consumable items that were being air lifted but they had to be of a more importance than sugar. Think about this, at a time you were living in Akokoro or Amulatar, how was the medicine in the local dispensary coming to you? By air. And these are arguments that make me confused, Ugandans scream how they needed sugar and soap, but why don't they complain about medication, about hospital supplies and about such lifesaving items? why were they not missing in Uganda, and why are you not listing them? In that time of scarcity did you have hospital shut downs? Why are you stuck on sugar and salt that some would even argue are poisonous items? Because the rest of them that were of value to people's lives were flown in sir. Medication was never a problem under that government for an airbus was flying into Entebbe every other day. A fuel tanker was flying in every other day sir, that is why you were able to drive. Is sugar salt and soap also a life threatening item? No so cut the crap of sugar and accept what you got, say thank you Iddi Amin and we are moving on sir. Geez !!!!!!

{c} We were being ruled over by a tyrant whose obsession was war and dictatorship.

Every leader has a priority, Iddi Amin was a soldier and his priority was to rebuild our national army, we needed a stable Uganda army, well trained well paid and well-armed. If you have a problem with that, I sincerely don't. But you see the problem with many of you is to refuse that what Amin did belonged to you and me for it was a national asset. I saw Ugandans packing for Tanzanians equipment that belonged to our country. That stupid tank belonged to Amin take it. Up to today I have failed to get a single name of a single Ugandan in UNLF that rejected looting our country. We had special tanks that would split up to create a bridge so that the rest of them cross over, that was a very new technology in African military, they were all taken and we lost them as Ugandans. Amin never lost them we lost them for we needed them as a country sir. How dare you go after him for building a national force? But you see that is what you wanted for all this is Amin's nonsense, Dr Kizza Besigye loaded an air craft with weapons and sent it to Yugoslavia, to today we have never heard about it and you simply don't care for it was Amin's air craft anyways, How stupid are Ugandans? And I am just asking here.

Sorry what was your next question again !!!!!!! ?

Edward Mulindwa
Toronto

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