Civil society organizations thrust the management of Kawolo Hospital into the spotlight over a host of alleged malpractices, including medical staff stealing drugs, selling blood to patients and charging them ambulance fees.
The Anti Corruption Coalition Uganda (ACCU) and Universal Human Rights Defenders Activists (UHRDA) blew the whistle on the Hospital and are petitioning the Inspector General of Government to intervene in what they describe as, “grand scale corruption with impunity.”
In a letter to the IGG the activists finger the Hospital’s medical superintendent Joshua Kiberu accusing him of forgery,corruption and Extortion
ACCU and UHRDA also unearthed a syndicate of drug theft at the Buikwe based hospital, the syndicate has medical staff allegedly conniving with bodaboda cyclists to ferry medicine, including Anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) to their private clinics, “four tins of ARVs are stolen from Kawolo Hospital to Joska Medical Centre by Kigoma Flex (bodadboda cyclist) and he is given shs10,000 every week.”
One of the Nurses at the Hospital Hadijah Namutebi, is already under investigation and awaits her fate. The IGG is finalising investigations following a tip off from concerned residents and ACCU. A search certificate dated 16/08/2013 from the IGG indicates she was in possession of male circumcision uniforms and a variety of tablets labeled Government of Uganda, not for sale all of which she had put up for sale.
In an interview with the daily Monitor newspaper last year, the hospital administrator, Haruna Wamala, cited late and at times futile deliveries of drugs from government as one of the major challenges the hospital faces but it turns out the Hospital staff are the ones failing the Hospital.
When contacted for a comment on this particular case, the medical superintendent rubbished the claims saying,
“Have they (ACCU) verified with National Medical Stores or National Drug Authority that the drugs were from Kawolo Hospital? That is sheer mudslinging.”
On her part, Ms Cissy Kagaba, the Executive Director ACCU said it is ridiculous for the hospital Management to ask them to go to go back to NDA or NMS to verify because the Drugs were stolen from Kawolo and not the Authority.
“Why then should we go and ask them if the drugs were from Kawolo? Isn’t the nurse staff at Kawolo Hospital? Let him address our concerns of theft.”she insists.
At a forum organized by the two civil society organisations in Lugazi a month ago, the Chief Administrative Officer Buikwe confirmed the nurse was under investigation,
“The CAO or police cannot close the clinic. I am waiting for a report from IGG so I can write to 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, I don’t know of any doctor or nurse who has not been paid, they are the first to be paid with UPDF (by government). They are using that (low and delayed pay) as a scapegoat.”
In the same forum, patients revealed how doctors and nurses register drugs over and above what they actually administer to the patient or what is prescribed so as to, “make a difference.”
However the most Controversial Revelation in the Anti corruption coalition’s letter to the IGG is the call for Investigations into what is reffered to as “ambulance fees,” with the medical superintendent allegedly charging patients to use the Ambulance, “Most of the patients being referred to Mulago Hospital are being asked for fuel worth shs100,000, the patients are not given receipts but the administrator goes to the fuel stations and requests for receipts,” the letter, signed by Mr Sulaiman Mayanja as Executive Director UHRDA reads.
UGO NEWS could not independently verify the allegation that the Hospital management later claims for money for fuel using forged receipts. Kiberu however 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.”
He is also accused of using the hospital’s ambulance to transport patients from his private medical facility (Joska Medical Centre) to Nsambya, Mengo and Mulago hospitals in Kampala. In an earlier interview the hospital administrator noted that the hospital’s only ambulance is allocated a fuel vote of less than shs300,000 per quarter (three months) yet the guzzler at times consumes over shs70,000 per day.
“Scovia Mudodo from Namengo village was asked for shs80,000 to be operated on, she had shs30,000 but the doctor refused till she went home and sold her goat. She was not issued a receipt,” the stinging letter also reveals that this happens in the public and not private wing of the hospital.
Another witness who asked not to be named, said blood is sold at the hospital, “My daughter fell sick when the blood banks had run dry, I was shocked when we were asked for shs100,000 to buy the blood even when I have donated blood before.”
In the Out patients Department which ideally should be free, patients “are charged money for CT scans and laboratory services. Recently there were 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,” Mr Mayanja told the forum attended by senior police officers and residents who vowed to stop the president’s convoy and seek his intervention.
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, is stolen. We demand an end to this impunity because tax payers (patients) are paying the price of a few greedy people at Kawolo.”
A source from the Inspectorate of government’s Mukono regional office confirmed investigations are ongoing but declined to divulge details.
About Kawolo General Hospital
Located 46km from Kampala, the hospital opened in 1968, has an inpatient capacity of 112 beds and serves over 1.2million people around Buikwe, Buvuma and Mukono districts. Today, the hospital has been run down with patients of different ages and ailments sharing wards, others sleeping on the floor, dilapidated buildings and financial constraints with hospital management pointing fingers at government’s failure to meet its obligations.
