Health workers of Kitagata hospital in Kitagata town council Sheema district accuse government for ignoring them and put their lives at risk.
Sister Justine Kemirembe Kitagata hospital clinical in charge told Kaaro Karungi News that health workers at Kitagata hospital work in hardship situation saying that even they share rooms for accommodation to an extent of sleeping like hens due to congestion.
“I don’t know how I can describe our accommodation situation, we sleep like local hens because every double house, is shared by two health workers, one sleeps in the bedroom with his/her family and then another one in the sitting room, remember we aren’t allowed to go with our young babies at work, so some of us have maids, we have children and husband, now think about the situation where the boss sleeps with the maid in the same room, you can’t have bedroom privacy with your partner, think about the situation where children are seeing or hearing you romancing each other, we can’t have room to sit in and watch Television, due to this situation, we don’t entertain visitors, we are still living in University life where a visitor sits on the bed , OMG come and help us” Justine Kemirembe
Sister Justine said that on top of poor accommodation facilities, government has failed to employ enough health workers in Kitagata hospital a thing that has forced them to work daily from morning up to evening without any off
“This hospital is entitled to be having 46 certificate nurses, but we only have 17 nurses, these 17 are deployed in 5 major wards and OPD meaning that every ward has 4 workers, some work at night and others during day time, in case one is sick or he or she has got an official duty or an emergency, it becomes another problem for us, we over work beyond human understanding, we can’t get time to rest our minds” Sr Justine
Justine urged public to stop accusing midwives for being harsh to them saying that Kitagata hospital midwives due to the fact that they are very few, they work day and night whereby they usually report at work when they are already tired because the whole hospital has only 14 midwives.
“Monthly, Kitagata hospital midwife, must help between 26 – 32 mothers to deliver meaning in a year, more than 366 babies pass through her hands, our midwives work tirelessly, the law doesn’t allow one to go beyond 15 mothers but for us we double them monthly, therefore sometimes our midwives becomes harsh due to tiresome yet they don’t get extra allowances” Sr Justine
Sheema South MP where Kitagata is found Hon Prof Elijah Dickens Mushemeza said that problems of that hospital are above district level and that that’s why yesterday but one Sheema district council passed a resolution that Kitagata hospital should be upgraded from the district level to region.
According to some statistics of March, April and May, Kitagata hospital helped 1057 mothers to deliver, whereby 252 were from Mitooma district, 277 from Bushenyi district, 260 from Sheema district, 178 from Ntungamo district while others from other districts like Buhweju, Rubirizi, Rukungiri and Rwampara.
In a day Kitagata hospital registers between 300 – 500 out going patients especially from greater Bushenyi districts and Ntungamo although the hospital is still under district level, however recently, Sheema district council passed a resolution asking government of Uganda to upgrade it to regional level.