{UAH} Government’s Shs3,000 per sick citizen is a joke

kAYIBANDA Museveni allocates an annual budget of $250 million for the treatment abroad, mainly in Germany, South Africa, India and neighbouring Kenya, of himself, his family, government ministers and advisers and an army of regime cronies, yet spends shs 3,000 or half a dollar ( $0.5) per month for the treatment of ordinary Ugandans. This is money that cannot buy even a pack of aspirin tablets, consequently Ugandans have to pay for the care and medication they get from what are supposed to be public hospitals providing free services.

Uganda used to have the best Public Health Service in black Africa, but this has now been systematically dismantled by Kayibanda Museveni and replaced by expensive foreign owned private hospitals and clinics. Health care in Uganda today is the preserve of the rich or well connected.Uganda's public hospitals today are no longer places for treatment and healing; they are mortuaries and graveyards where sick people go to die !!!

Bobby

Government's Shs3,000 per sick citizen is a joke

     

Patients in one of the ward at Mulago Hospital  

In Summary

The issue: Health expenditure
Our view: The government must review its expenditure priorities and refocus on citizens' welfare. There is, therefore, need to cut down wasteful expenditure on redundant public administration.

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By Editor

The revelation that government spends a paltry Shs3,000 a month to treat a sick citizen is astonishing. According to findings of the Ministry of Health's survey 2014-2016 on National Health Expenditure, the government spends about Shs3,700 for treatment per person in a whole year. And this is a reduction from about Shs40,000, which government used annually to treat each patient who sought treatment in public hospitals in 2013. This is contrary to the WHO-recommended average expenditure of about Shs130,000 per person annually and clearly shows government has abandoned providing healthcare services to its citizens.

This explains the high mortality rates in government hospitals due to inadequate or lack of treatment. It also means poor quality of healthcare one gets from a government hospital. No wonder the "Uganda Health Accounts; National Health Expenditure" report shows that majority of Ugandans have shunned government hospitals and chosen the expensive private hospitals or health facilities.

The reason cannot be that people have become richer to seek super treatment in private hospitals. It is rather the frustration and hopelessness arising from poor healthcare or lack of it that drives the desperate sick to the costly private hospitals where one with an option would not dare go to spend the little money they have or have borrowed from neighbours. Government must prioritise healthcare for its citizens. Often, government officials tell the country of how the economy has been growing fast and steadily for the last 30 years. The economy has been growing at above 5 per cent per annum over the years, meaning the revenue inflows have also grown. 
The question then is, why are these rosy economic growth readings not translating into improved welfare, healthcare, education and other basic needs for the citizens? Quality of education and health services in government institutions has pathetically declined amidst growing resources! Why?

The government must address this question. If the economy has been growing at a promising rate of above 5 per cent, but the government's per capita expenditure on health, education and other basic needs for the citizens has been consistently declining, it means government has directed the money to non-essential expenditures that do not help the citizens. 
The government must review its expenditure priorities and refocus on citizens' welfare. There is, therefore, need to cut down wasteful expenditure on redundant public administration; a bloated Parliament, Cabinet and other administrative units that only serve to drain money from the Treasury without any tangible value

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