Deputy Speaker’s constituency Health Centres in worrying state;women & children at the highest risk

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Locals want the MP,Thomas Tayebwa to come and see how the situation is.
Locals want the MP,Thomas Tayebwa to come and see how the situation is.




PUBLIC OUTCRY.  Locals and other concerned stakeholders have expressed concern over the worrying and deteriorating state of health centres in Ruhinda North Constituency Mitooma district, that’s represented by Rt. Hon. Thomas Tayebwa doubling as Deputy Speaker of the 11th Parliament. They say service delivery in lacking,even in other sectors like transport, education and others.









Mr. Edwin Nasasira Patel,one of the concerned citizens from central ward Rutookye town council raised a “concern” amidst escalating public outcry, locals calling upon Hon. Tayebwa to intervene and work with local authorities for better service delivery in health, education, transport and other sectors. In this in-depth story, we visited different health centres to investigate and unearth the service delivery gaps.







Facilities like Bitereko Health Centre III are ill-equipped and can’t provide enough services to the people and locals say getting attention from health workers is also a chance since most of them work when they want besides reaching at the health centres late and leaving early to do their personal business.




Patel says the area MP Tayebwa should come and see how "bad" the situation is.
Patel says the area MP Tayebwa should come and see how “bad” the situation is!

Women and children at the highest risk. What patients go through at night, without any health worker to attend to them.   Emergency cases like pregnant mothers, children suffering from diseases like malaria and other patients are also not attended to especially at night. The security guards at some health centres are the only people around, only their contacts are indicated on the health facility doors like at Bitereko Health Centre III in the maternity ward. Some patients & caretakers spend nights praying that the patients’ situation doesn’t deteriorate in the middle of the night. It is also hard to access Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights-SRHR related services like family planning, HIV testing, guidance & counselling and others.




“And out of experience and ground facts, most of Health Centre III facilities like Bitereko and Kanyabwanga close at 5:30pm and resume at 09:30am. By the time we reached at Bitereko health facility, there was no one to attend to us even after calling & calling for so long, because the doors were closed and supported with stones. We left the place helpless and headed to Kanyabwanga H/C III where we found it’s worse,” a source.




Locals say that lack of supervision and attention from leaders is the biggest challenge since the leaders have capacity to get treatment from private & standard health facilities in or outside the district, country or abroad because most of the leaders seek for medical attention in Bushenyi district based private health facilities. A whole Health Centre has only 2 midwives to attend to 35-50 pregnant mothers whereby and at least 6 of the mothers are referred to other big health facilities. A source at one of the health centres also disclosed that workers aren’t motivated.







“MP Tayebwa should always visit these healthcare facilities and get information from locals on how they are operating. Local authorities should ensure that the staff are supervised and motivated. We need the DHO & CAO to intervene,” a concerned citizen.




Bitereko HC III handles patients from areas of Kanyabukundu,Busheregyenyi,Karangala,Bugongo,Omukirama and others while Kanyabwanga HC III receives patients from Nyandago,Bwera,Rwenkurijo,Rwempungu, Rwebitunda,Rucence,Kyabuzigye and other areas. District authorities including the LC 5 chairman Benon Karyaija, District Chief Administrative Officer-CAO & District Health Officer-DHO didn’t respond to our calls for a comment on this matter. We’ll continue monitoring the situation and doing follow-up stories to promote public accountability and service delivery. RISE NEWS UGANDA on TWITTER https://twitter.com/RiseNewsUganda/status/1523335134136750080?s=20&t=C7Q_X_dVoxB39AlNzXaKug  









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