Relatives of patients at Mbale regional referral government hospital in the eastern part of Uganda have begun moving patients to private clinics after health workers at the hospital declined to offer services, on grounds that police are holding in custody six of their colleagues for allegedly neglecting an expectant mother who later passed away.
On 19 September 2011, police arrested and detained six medical officers of Mbale referral hospital as it commenced an investigation into the death of a pregnant mother and her unborn child recently. Cecilia Nambozo, the deceased, was a teacher at Busamaga primary a community school in Mbale municipality.
Sources from the hospital indicated that the deceased was allegedly unattended to by the medical officer at the delivery ward and bled to death after failing to raise Uganda shillings 300,000 (approximately 150 US dollars) the medical officers had asked for as a bribe.
The arrested medical officers included Dr Mercy Nassali, Dr Damascus Kagga Ssenyonga, Dr Michael Emusugut and Dr Moses Muwanguzi. The nursing officer in charge of the maternity ward, Sister Margaret Kakai, is also being held by police.
However the post mortem carried out by police surgeon Dr Bernabas Rubanza indicated that the baby weighed 5.2 kilograms and that Nambozo died due to her failure to push the baby thereby causing a rupture of her uterus. He added that due to the negligence of the doctors the uterus malfunctioned and Nambozo bled to death.
Nambozo’s case is one of more than 250 expectant mothers who have died at Mbale Hospital in Uganda during the last five years. The deaths are due to the neglect of medical care, drug shortages, a lack of hospital equipment and the delays expectant mothers experience in reaching the hospital.
Now relatives for most of the patients have begun ferrying their patients to the nearby private clinics after medical staff declined to offer their service on grounds that they are showing solidarity with the six colleagues whom they claim have been victimized for an offence they did not commit. However it was not possible to ascertain how many patients had been moved by the time of this report.
In response to this action by the patients and their relatives the Commissioner of Clinical Services from the Ministry of Health and other government officers have been moving from one local radio station in the area to anther trying to convince the masses to take such action.