Health financing through corporate social responsibility

The doctors strike now almost a month gives an opportunity for serious thinking and hope we are given space in all media so that we are listened to.

There is a gap and the country is just waking up to very bright and professional debate that leaves almost everyone who wants to challenge the doctors spell bound.

The doctors appeared before the parliamentary committee on health watched it as cast from NBS and there was another eye opener when some MP couldn't understand issues on why doctors are striking. The MP brought in the usual arty politics and just failed to add up substance to the debate. Such should worry us about the quality of legislation.

That said when I was growing up in Tororo we had Uganda Cement Industry and East African Trypanosomiasis Research institutions offering the best healthcare services not only to its employees but we the communities around. Time came when we believed EATRO offered the best treatment for malaria, yet they were a research based organization on sleeping sickness.

UCI offered the best treatment for wounds and industrial related injuries including fractures. In that related field we had health units at Kakira, Lugazi, Kibimba to mention but a few.

I grew up in Busitema at the foot hills of Busitema national college of Agriculture college now turned into University.Busitema College had one of the best dispensary substituting our Syanyonja sub dispensary in supporting us the locals with health concerns.

Some of us can't debate because of technicality issues but I find some debates missing so many things. The collapse of systems largely has depended on the creation of “government help us populations”.

With this in mind we would be taking about 40 healthcare units attached to institutions like universities and financed by contributions from Universities. The many industries would be having their own health centers supported by funding from their own products and labor force.

In the United States I work in a hospital which can't treat me minus an insurance cover which insurance cover is a direct deduction from my salary. I pay 100 dollars per month for my health insurance.

Threatening doctors minus soliciting for ideas is to miss the point. The poor have no space in Uganda and you can't hold health workers at ransom to support destitution. As healthcare providers attaching us to these poor populations is sentencing us to a life of destitution. We need to be better than these poor people and have capacity to treat them when supported well.

The industrial action that I support 100% should bring everyone at a standstill and we chart out direction Uganda is not burning. That action is only a wakeup call that look here let us all be Ugandans. Stop discussing with the doctors in the dock the question should be what do we do?

My mother who has contributed labor force through us for Uganda her sons is admitted in Mulago Uganda Cancer institute she has been there for now eight months running. The doctor’s strike maybe can help us highlight her plight. We have to keep her alive at a cost of sh600,000 per week.

We are a family with the best surgeon the country can talk of Dr. Geoffrey Madewo, but we are failing to finance the treatment of our mother. Which poor people can manage this and yet we seem to paint a picture that the doctor’s strike denies my mother services? We are stretched beyond treating our mother. For sure if there is anyone we can skin or fleece we would do it.

I am one of the best noise makers in health because I served in the most difficult conditions and not made any fortune being a healthcare worker, you have read the many articles I have written for health and support for the poor. I feel cheated Museveni came in 86 when I was a young man 21 years old I am 53 years now but feel the country just failed to make the best use of me though I offered my best.

I am disappointed at my late age and perhaps almost becoming a reference book on the shelves I had to flee Uganda my country.

The writer is a clinical officer