{UAH} Tribalist: A Ugandan who asks why the sick have no medicine

Tribalist: A Ugandan who asks why the sick have no medicine

THURSDAY APRIL 07 2022

    

Ugandans who ask why there is no care for treatable ailments at home are quickly accused of tribalism, that their complaint is because the sick or dead dignitary was not their tribe. ILLUSTRATION | JOHN NYAGA

Summary

• Faced with an ailing health system, Ugandans find themselves facing Archbishop Camara's dilemma as they wonder thus: "When we give medicine to the sick, they call us philanthropists; when we ask why the sick have no medicine, they call us tribalists."
• For years, the political elite and their relatives have been flying out on medical tourism at taxpayers' expense as the once famous Mulago National Referral Hospital groans under managerial incompetence.
• While many hardworking health workers do their best to provide care at Mulago, some stories from the referral hospital read like bad fiction.

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By JOACHIM BUWEMBO

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The Brazilian Human Rights defender, Archbishop Helder Camara, famously said: "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint; when I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."

Faced with an ailing health system, Ugandans find themselves facing Archbishop Camara's dilemma as they wonder thus: "When we give medicine to the sick, they call us philanthropists; when we ask why the sick have no medicine, they call us tribalists."

Only last week, a philanthropist health camp kicked off in northern Uganda to offer free surgery to hundreds. These are life-changing surgeries which, to well-equipped experts, are considered simple procedures but remain out of reach if you are not rich in these parts.

When the camp was announced earlier, too many people registered and the philanthropist organisers agonised as they screened and turned away hundreds of sick applicants due to the limited capacity.

In February, a fake health camp had been announced to provide artificial limbs in eastern Uganda. A phone number for booking was given and thousands who called found it was not working, and kept asking around on social media how to access the camp organisers. It was a sad season until everyone realised the camp was not to be and gave up.

Too many people thus live with debilitating conditions that could be easily treated if the health system and infrastructure itself was healthy. It isn't. So those with the financial muscle either pay through the nose to have their ailments fixed in Nairobi or overseas.

For years, the political elite and their relatives have been flying out on medical tourism at taxpayers' expense as the once famous Mulago National Referral Hospital groans under managerial incompetence. Think of any management evil and it has been alleged about Mulago. From organ trade and sale of free government drugs, to non-deployment of ''super experts'' trained at huge expense abroad and the running of private pharmacies selling free government drugs right within Mulago Hospital and continuing to do so for four years since the government media exposed it.

While many hardworking health workers do their best to provide care at Mulago, some stories from the referral hospital read like bad fiction.

Last year, for example, Soroti Hospital in eastern Uganda referred a case of conjoined twins, one of whom was born dead, to Mulago for a delicate operation to separate them and save the living one. But their caretaker says Mulago told him to return to the village and wait for the second twin to die so they can be buried.

In absence of a ''referral'' document it is hard to tell the exact words the twins' grandfather was told. But the Soroti doctors told him to return so they try to perform a miracle, and the brave upcountry medics succeeded in saving the living twin... And so on and so forth.

How can citizens protest such a state of affairs at their public facilities? Not easy, until a VIP is flown abroad and dies there. Then Ugandans who ask why there is no care for treatable ailments at home are quickly accused of tribalism, that their complaint is because the sick or dead dignitary was not their tribe.

Emotions and tempers rise, dominating public debate until there is hardly anybody asking the right question about the health infrastructure and system anymore. At the end, everyone's tribal voice is hoarse and the subject is abandoned, the real problem unaddressed.

Only last month, again, some top officials of Mulago Hospital were arrested after a whistle-blower leaked credible information about grand corruption and mismanagement at the facility. Millions of dollars have been sunk in refurbishment of the same.

A few years earlier, about $400 million was guaranteed as loan by parliament for a private project to build a specialised hospital near Kampala to treat the big and the rich so the national treasury stops bleeding dollars whenever the mighty fall sick.

And for innumerable times, a national health insurance scheme gets mentioned whenever the national budget is being processed. It stops at mentioning, yet the scheme would help early detection of issues that become fatal for being discovered late.

Now people fear to ask simple, common sense questions for fear of being called tribalists. The result? Incompetence and corruption get protected as avoidable deaths increase.

Joachim Buwembo is a Kampala-based journalist. E-mail: buwembo@gmail.com

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