“IDLE”
AMBULANCES A SIGN OF RELUCTANCE IN HEALTH CARE
By Adellah Agaba
The Daily Monitor has
recently launched a commendable initiative to uncover the misuse of ambulances
in various government health facilities countrywide. Instead of the usual
rebukes that usually accompany such media campaigns, the Government needs to
fully support this particular one as it is geared towards improving the quality
of service delivery.
It is not surprising
that the exposition reveals an appalling state of the health service sector. It
has been a long known secret that most of the government ambulances are either idle,
broken down or being misused by government officials, as official transport
vehicles. Often times, patients in critical need of ambulance service have been
extorted of large sums of money because the health facilities lack fuel for the
ambulances. In deed many of the health facilities have often run without
medical consumables because of inadequate budgetary allocations to the health
sector.
The Government recently yielded to calls for an
additional allocation to the health ministry, forking out sh49.54 billion for
the sector. This money is to be financed through budget from other ministries.
The key concern is that this additional budget is going to recruitment and
remuneration of health workers – with sh6.5 billion already identified for the
recruitment of 6,172 health workers.
While staff shortage has been one of the key
bottlenecks facing the health sector – with many qualified health professionals
preferring to opt high paying foreign jobs – an additional budgetary allocation
to only staffing needs will not solve the endemic problems in the sector.
The Daily Monitor of March 11,
2012 published an agonizing article titled “Nakapiripirit
patients use wheelbarrows as ambulances” that revealed the despair of a
husband wheeling his pregnant wife to a health centre on a wheelbarrow. The
woman did not make it, the only ambulance that used to serve the district broke
down three years ago and government is yet to respond to the district’s request
for another vehicle. Many other Ugandan women have died while giving birth
often because of either professional negligence or inadequate medical
equipment. The case of Mbale teacher Cecilia Nambozo – a Ugandan tax payer who
bled to death 2011 during labour because she lacked sh300,000 for a caesarean
section - is still fresh in our minds.
Of what importance is
it to recruit more health workers when there are insufficient medical
consumables like protective wears, or constant drug stock outs in the health
centres? Will it be relevant to cut several ministries’ budgets when citizens
cannot access health services due to transportation inconveniences – including
lack of ambulances or poor road conditions?
The Ministry of Health needs
to have sufficient data on the usage of ambulances by its various facilities.
There is need for constant monitoring and supervision in the health centres to
ensure that the ambulances are put to their proper use. In addition, Ugandan citizens
have a collective responsibility in ensuring that public property is put to
proper use, instead of looking on blindly and later heaping the blame on
government.
With all these budget
cuts we expect to see a vibrant health sector with good services delivered to
the stakeholders and ambulances which are working to save life not parked and
idle when expectant mothers are dying after more health personnel have been
recruited. It’s time to see value for money in the Health Sector.
The author works with Uganda Debt Network
No comments:
Post a Comment