Children living on Pallisa islands get polio vaccine

Apr 05, 2016

In Mutiama, a village of 560 residents, people have to sail for three hours to reach Obutet health center II which is 35km in to the mainland

Communities living on the islands of Mutiama, Luzira, Gabba in Gogonyo Sub County in Pallisa district got surprised on Sunday afternoon to see a team of medical workers led by the district health officer Pallisa Dr. Godffrey Mulekwa in their abandoned localities.

Godffrey Mushemeza, 38, a herdsman in Mutiama Island said they have been neglected in most government programs yet when they go to the mainland they see a lot of signposts of projects given to other communities.

Mushemeza asked the Pallisa district local government to have them at heart too because these islands generate revenue from fishing activities and milk which is taken as far away as Mbale.

Janet Mary Amulen, 56, said what affects them a lot is consumption of unsafe water drawn from the lake, no pit latrines as they practice open defecation, no mosquito nets and their huts were never sprayed though Pallisa was one of the beneficiaries of the kick malaria out campaign.

Amulen said in Mutiama, a village of 560 residents, people have to sail for three hours to reach Obutet health center II which is 35km in to the mainland.

She said government should hurry to rescue them with water purification techniques like water guard and at least mobile clinics for nurses to visit them even once a week.

"You are lucky to come here at this time if you risked to stay up to 6pm you would have felt how we suffer from mosquitoes which start attacking at 6pm and in this wet season we keep dry cow dung in our huts  for smoking away mosquitoes ", she said.

Eriasa Kanasi, 74, demanded that tents be provided to the people  staying in the islands because life is completely difficult as they cannot build mud and wattle huts given the effects of floods which affect them.

 

Kanasi said people settled on the islands thirty years ago because of insurgency and population pressure on the mainland where courts are flooded with land disputes.

In direct reaction to the questions and requests, Benard Ikwaras the senior health inspector of Agule County said the health department has interventions like training the communities in constructing pit latrines by filling sand in bags, pile and using improvised ladders for climbing.

However, Dr. Godffrey Mulekwa the district health officer Pallisa who has been busy in communities in the sub counties of Pallisa, Petete, Butebo where the Kanyiriri sect believers were hiding their children denying health workers access to them yet they wanted all the targeted 85,000 children vaccinated against polio and dewormed said his office is aware of challenges faced by people in the islands.

Mulekwa said it was not correct for the communities living in Gabba, Luzira, Mutima and Matanda to conclude that they are neglected but that there is a challenge of accessing them.

He said during the assessment of the indoor spraying they found out that the nature of the huts was not favourable for spraying.

Mulekwa said a hut which is to sprayed must be of bricks or mud wattle because walls were made out of papyrus and that they were close to the water body which could turn disastrous to aquatic animals.

"It's very expensive for medical staff to travel to islands but I have submitted the proposal to the district planner to provide a motorboat, life jackets to enable medical workers and community development  reach the people their easily", he said.

The deputy district resident commissioner Pallisa Sadiq Bategana blamed the district council for neglecting these islands.

Bategana said given the state of the soil, stones can be ferried from the mainland to raise places where a health center and a school can be erected.

"The problem is the council mistakes people who stay there as fishermen, herdsmen and criminals who go to hide yet these are Ugandans who are supposed to be treated like any other", he said.

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