There was a stir in Tororo municipality last Monday, as area MP Sanjay Tanna cautioned officials at Tororo government hospital against theft and misuse of property.

Tanna, who was handing over mattresses donated by Tororo Cement Limited, told hospital officials that only good handling of the mattresses would attract more donations.

“I don’t want to hear that the mattresses have got lost like it happened at Kawolo hospital in Lugazi where mattresses donated by the Indian community disappeared within six months,” the MP said.

The donation was in response to a formal appeal by the hospital administration due to a longstanding shortage of mattresses, due to which many patients used to sleep on the floor.

Tororo cement is already providing meals to HIV-positive patients at the hospital on every clinic day, besides feeding pupils from the five primary schools neighbouring the factory through their banana project.

Before Tanna’s comments, civil society organizations thrust the management of Kawolo hospital into the spotlight, last week over a host of malpractices, including pilfering of drugs by health workers, sale of blood to patients and charging ambulance fees.

The Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda (ACCU) and Universal Human Rights Defenders Activists (UHRDA) petitioned the Inspector General of Government to intervene in what they described as ‘grand-scale corruption with impunity’.

In a letter to the IGG, the activists accused the hospital medical superintendent, Joshua Kiberu, of forgery, corruption and extortion In their report, ACCU and UHRDA claimed that there was a syndicate of drug theft at the hospital. This syndicate had health workers conniving with boda boda cyclists to ferry medicine, including anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) to their private clinics.

Consequently, the IGG’s office is investigating a nurse at the hospital, following a tip-off from concerned residents and ACCU. A search certificate dated August 16, 2013 from the IGG indicates she was found in possession of male circumcision uniforms and a variety of tablets labelled ‘Government of Uganda, Not for sale,’ which she was preparing to sell.

When contacted for a comment on this particular case, Kiberu rubbished the claims.

“Have they [ACCU] verified with National Medical Stores (NMS) or National Drug Authority (NDA) that the drugs were from Kawolo hospital? That is sheer mudslinging,” he replied.

At a recent forum organized by the two civil society organisations in Lugazi, Buikwe Chief Administrative Officer Herbert Matsiko confirmed the nurse, a one Namutebi, was under investigation.

“The CAO or police cannot close the clinic. I’m waiting for a report from IGG so I can write to the Public Service Commission which employs and sacks. The hospital management is charged with the efficient running of the hospital, I don’t see how drugs can be stolen without them noticing,” Matsiko said.

In the same forum, patients revealed how doctors and nurses prescribe drugs over and above what they actually administer to the patient or what is prescribed to make a difference. However, the most controversial revelation in the letter to the IGG was the “ambulance fees,” which hospital authorities allegedly charge patients.

“Most of the patients referred to Mulago hospital are being asked for fuel worth Shs 100,000; the patients are not given receipts but the administrator goes to the fuel stations and requests for receipts,” the letter, signed by Sulaiman Mayanja as UHRDA executive director reads.

But Kiberu laughed off the accusations.

“I like such mudslinging! You know some of us are above such petty mudslinging. That is total rubbish. Can they bring evidence? Let them present witnesses.”

In an earlier interview, the hospital administrator declared that the hospital’s only ambulance was allocated a fuel vote of less than Shs 300,000 per quarter (three months) yet it occasionally consumes over Shs 70,000 of fuel per day.

Another witness, who asked not to be named, said she had been made to pay for blood at the hospital:

“My daughter fell sick when the blood banks had run dry, I was shocked when we were asked for Shs 100,000 to buy the blood even when I had donated blood before,” she said.

UHRDA say they uncovered over 40 mattresses hidden in the hospital yet patients were sleeping on the floor.

“When we raised dust, the next day they were taken to the wards,” said Mayanja, during the forum, at which residents threatened to stop the president’s convoy and seek his intervention.

Commenting on the development, Cissy Kagaba said: “Kawolo hospital is one of those sick hospitals in Uganda that government has virtually failed to run; but it is even more sickening that even the little there is stolen. We demand an end to this impunity.”

The hospital, 46km on the Kampala – Jinja highway was opened in 1968, and has an in-patient capacity of 112 beds and serves over 1.2 million people around Buikwe, Buvuma and Mukono districts annually.

Today, the hospital has been run down, with patients sleeping on the floor, dilapidated buildings and financial constraints. Hospital management points fingers at government’s failure to meet its funding obligations.

source:http://observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28372&Itemid=114