I didn’t know it was Global Fund money
Mar 28, 2006
<b>By Mathew Rukikaire</b><br><br>I wish to respond to the reports which have appeared recently in the press citing me as a beneficiary of the Global Fund for prevention of HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB.
By Mathew Rukikaire
I wish to respond to the reports which have appeared recently in the press citing me as a beneficiary of the Global Fund for prevention of HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB.
First of all, I was not aware that I, as an individual, had benefited from the Global Fund. Whereas it is true that when I suffered from a particularly nasty attack of malaria in December 2004 and went into a coma, the President was kind and gracious enough to request that funds be found for my hospitalisation in Nairobi, I believe that the President meant that the money should be taken from the appropriate vote in the Ministry of Health. I am grateful to the President. I wrote and thanked him and he replied, briefly informing me about what the government is doing to fight malaria.
I would like the public to be aware of the facts pertaining to this case, because it appears to me that some people are trying to use it for their own ends. The facts are as follows:
lFirst, mine was a sudden illness. I went into a coma and after two days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), the doctors at Mulago Hospital recommended that help should be sought for me elsewhere. My family quickly hired a Flying Doctor Service plane to evacuate me to Kenya.
lSecondly, the funds sent by government later on were forwarded directly to the Uganda High Commission in Kenya who paid Nairobi Hospital and all the doctors directly. No member of my family handled the money. This can be verified.
lThirdly, I am not the first, nor will I be the last Ugandan to be sent abroad for medical treatment using public funds. Indeed, this is an institutionalised facility with a medical board to regulate it. What should disturb the public more is why our national referral hospital is not equipped to handle cases such as mine, so that every Ugandan can benefit.
The more pertinent question to ask, in my view, is why Mulago Hospital is in such a sorry state. I am quite sure that 99.9% of Ugandans who come down with the kind of malaria I suffered from in December 2004, do not recover from it. Indeed, the young man who used to drive me and who suffered from the same bout of malaria died in a Kampala hospital while I was in Nairobi Hospital. At the time I was hospitalised in ICU Mulago, the hospital could not even avail an ambulance. The machine that scans the brain was down, so my wife was told to hire an ambulance to take me, a patient in coma, to Bombo Road for the scan, and again she hired an ambulance to take me to the airport. Mulago did not have even one dialysis machine (for testing functioning of the kidney) in working condition.
Yet it is this machine which made a difference about whether I was to live or die. As soon as I arrived at Nairobi hospital, it was obvious to the doctors that my kidneys and my liver had shut down because malaria parasites had destroyed my blood to such a degree that these organs could not cope with the toxic load in the blood stream. I had multiple organ failure, a condition which, in most cases, is fatal. I was immediately hooked on to the dialysis machine for 72 hours, and then I began to recover.
If sh40 million had earlier been invested in repairing the dialysis machine which I understand exists in Mulago, I would not have had to be flown out! My daughter narrated to me how, while I was in ICU in Mulago, a very sick man was rushed in; the machine that was monitoring my vital signs was removed from me and fixed onto the dying man’s chest. When the poor man died shortly after, the machine was returned to me!
The doctors in Mulago are working under very difficult circumstances. For as long as our national hospital is in such a state, people will continue to be flown out, a number of them at government expense, and many more will die.
I have come to believe that the cheapest thing in Uganda is human life; I am not being cynical. When I was ready to leave Nairobi Hospital, I went back to the ICU to thank the staff. I was shocked to discover that there was an entire room devoted to dialysis machines where kidney patients walk off the street and come for a few hours’ treatment!
I have heard that a senior officer in government was recently telling voters that I am an ungrateful person because I am FDC even in spite of the fact that the President paid my hospital bills! I am not FDC, but even if I were, I am quite sure the President would have reached out and helped me in my hour of need. This officer maligned the President by implying that his assistance was an attempt to bribe me. The President knew my political views, and he was still magnanimous enough to want to help me. I know that there are other citizens who belong to different political persuasions who have been assisted by government in similar circumstances.
Therefore, when the blame-games have ended, and the rhetoric, the public posturing and the pontification of officialdom are over, I pray that we will turn our attention to the serious matter of rectifying what has gone wrong with our health facilities, to prevent Ugandans from dying unnecessarily! I cannot apologise for being alive when, according to some, I should have died and saved the nation sh40 million; but I pray that God who gave me back my life will enable me to serve my nation in a manner that will be equivalent, or perhaps even more than, sh40 million! Even if the government had not paid my hospital bills, they would have been settled from family sources. I bless my family and friends who acted quickly and did not wait for government red tape, when I could not decide for myself. I live to die another day!
The writer is the former Minister of State for Privatisation
I wish to respond to the reports which have appeared recently in the press citing me as a beneficiary of the Global Fund for prevention of HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB.
First of all, I was not aware that I, as an individual, had benefited from the Global Fund. Whereas it is true that when I suffered from a particularly nasty attack of malaria in December 2004 and went into a coma, the President was kind and gracious enough to request that funds be found for my hospitalisation in Nairobi, I believe that the President meant that the money should be taken from the appropriate vote in the Ministry of Health. I am grateful to the President. I wrote and thanked him and he replied, briefly informing me about what the government is doing to fight malaria.
I would like the public to be aware of the facts pertaining to this case, because it appears to me that some people are trying to use it for their own ends. The facts are as follows:
lFirst, mine was a sudden illness. I went into a coma and after two days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), the doctors at Mulago Hospital recommended that help should be sought for me elsewhere. My family quickly hired a Flying Doctor Service plane to evacuate me to Kenya.
lSecondly, the funds sent by government later on were forwarded directly to the Uganda High Commission in Kenya who paid Nairobi Hospital and all the doctors directly. No member of my family handled the money. This can be verified.
lThirdly, I am not the first, nor will I be the last Ugandan to be sent abroad for medical treatment using public funds. Indeed, this is an institutionalised facility with a medical board to regulate it. What should disturb the public more is why our national referral hospital is not equipped to handle cases such as mine, so that every Ugandan can benefit.
The more pertinent question to ask, in my view, is why Mulago Hospital is in such a sorry state. I am quite sure that 99.9% of Ugandans who come down with the kind of malaria I suffered from in December 2004, do not recover from it. Indeed, the young man who used to drive me and who suffered from the same bout of malaria died in a Kampala hospital while I was in Nairobi Hospital. At the time I was hospitalised in ICU Mulago, the hospital could not even avail an ambulance. The machine that scans the brain was down, so my wife was told to hire an ambulance to take me, a patient in coma, to Bombo Road for the scan, and again she hired an ambulance to take me to the airport. Mulago did not have even one dialysis machine (for testing functioning of the kidney) in working condition.
Yet it is this machine which made a difference about whether I was to live or die. As soon as I arrived at Nairobi hospital, it was obvious to the doctors that my kidneys and my liver had shut down because malaria parasites had destroyed my blood to such a degree that these organs could not cope with the toxic load in the blood stream. I had multiple organ failure, a condition which, in most cases, is fatal. I was immediately hooked on to the dialysis machine for 72 hours, and then I began to recover.
If sh40 million had earlier been invested in repairing the dialysis machine which I understand exists in Mulago, I would not have had to be flown out! My daughter narrated to me how, while I was in ICU in Mulago, a very sick man was rushed in; the machine that was monitoring my vital signs was removed from me and fixed onto the dying man’s chest. When the poor man died shortly after, the machine was returned to me!
The doctors in Mulago are working under very difficult circumstances. For as long as our national hospital is in such a state, people will continue to be flown out, a number of them at government expense, and many more will die.
I have come to believe that the cheapest thing in Uganda is human life; I am not being cynical. When I was ready to leave Nairobi Hospital, I went back to the ICU to thank the staff. I was shocked to discover that there was an entire room devoted to dialysis machines where kidney patients walk off the street and come for a few hours’ treatment!
I have heard that a senior officer in government was recently telling voters that I am an ungrateful person because I am FDC even in spite of the fact that the President paid my hospital bills! I am not FDC, but even if I were, I am quite sure the President would have reached out and helped me in my hour of need. This officer maligned the President by implying that his assistance was an attempt to bribe me. The President knew my political views, and he was still magnanimous enough to want to help me. I know that there are other citizens who belong to different political persuasions who have been assisted by government in similar circumstances.
Therefore, when the blame-games have ended, and the rhetoric, the public posturing and the pontification of officialdom are over, I pray that we will turn our attention to the serious matter of rectifying what has gone wrong with our health facilities, to prevent Ugandans from dying unnecessarily! I cannot apologise for being alive when, according to some, I should have died and saved the nation sh40 million; but I pray that God who gave me back my life will enable me to serve my nation in a manner that will be equivalent, or perhaps even more than, sh40 million! Even if the government had not paid my hospital bills, they would have been settled from family sources. I bless my family and friends who acted quickly and did not wait for government red tape, when I could not decide for myself. I live to die another day!
The writer is the former Minister of State for Privatisation