Busana residents decry poor health services

HEALTH

Over 700 residents of Busana landing site along Lake Victoria in Buikwe district have called on government to invest more in improving health service delivery in the area.

Matiya Mwima, a former LC1 chairman of Busana, says they have only Tongola Health Centre II, which cannot deliver mothers and the drugs are always unavailable.

"We need it upgraded to Health Centre III to be able to deliver mothers and to increase consignments of drugs," he said.

He says women have to trek more than 12kms to Njeru to access antenatal services or deliver.

Mwima says they were depending on village health teams (VHTs). It is them who constantly visit women to encourage them to go for antenatal services.

He says the diseases that attack the landing site include malaria, bilharzia and dysentery.

Safina Nabwiire, who sought antenatal services at a medical camp, organized by St. John Ambulance and Christ the King Health Centre at the landing this week, said government cannot abandon the responsibility of providing social services at the landing site to only non-governmental organizations.

"We encounter several challenges, sometimes women die while delivering at home because the nearby health centre cannot deliver mothers because it has no maternity ward or theatre," she said.

Nabwiire appealed to the government to ensure the provision of more toilet facilities and sensitize the population about hand washing and waste management.

"The focal objective of the programme is to ensure that women stop producing from villages, where there is no qualified medical professionals or at the hands of traditional birth attendants," said Julius Paul Muzale, a clinician at Christ the King Health Centre II.

He added: "To do this, we have sensitized community volunteers  known as village health workers. They move around to identify pregnant mothers and their husbands to sensitize them on the importance of delivering in health facilities."

About latrines, Muzale noted that the community was yet to perform well. "But the people we work with have at least tried. We appeal to the community to beef up efforts to fight malaria by sleeping under treat mosquito nets."