Tension in Gulu as COVID-19 patients reach 65

By Joseph Omagor

HEALTH  COVID-19

The Coronavirus pandemic is slowly creating tension within the Gulu district leadership as patients isolated in the district reach 65. The regional hospital is full and patients are now isolated at the nearby school of Clinical officers. 

This has not gone well with the school administration which accuses the leadership and task force of isolating the patients in their premises without consent.

And with schools set to partially open on the 4th June 2020, the school principal is scared that her students will be at high risk when they return, but the task force chairman Major Okot Santo Lapolo is adamant that they have the power to isolate COVID-19 patients wherever they wish.

As activity slowly returns to the streets of Gulu town and so is tension slowly creeping in on its leaders who are increasingly becoming overwhelmed by the fast-rising COVID-19 cases. The regional hospital which was supposed to accommodate and treat a maximum of 12 patients is now accommodating 65.

The district leadership is now looking for quick solutions to shelter and treat the rising cases. On May 21, the district LC5 chairman Ojara Martin Mapenduzi publicly requested the state minister for primary health care Joyce moriku kaducu, to relocate Gulu school of clinical officers so the regional hospital could expand and house more COVID-19 patients.

However, it has emerged that a few days ago the COVID-19 task force reportedly cut the school fence at night and placed about 20 patients in isolation inside the school dormitories which has angered the school administration.

A rope was put to separate the school compound and an ambulance on standby to deliver more patients as some can be seen seated next to window panes in the school dormitories. According to the principal Aninge Grace, "Everything that is being done is without their consent. If our property is vandalized, we will press charges against the task force leadership.

The school is next to the road and residents are now living in fear, John Bosco Uhuru claims that anxiety and depression is taking hold of the residents.

Gulu school of clinical officers willing to cooperate 

Gulu school of clinical officers administration said they are willing to give one of their campuses in the outskirts of town in Laroo to act as a quarantine center but not their main campus. 

Furthermore, the school principal's fears stem from the fact that President Museveni directed schools to partially open on June 4, 2020, for students in their final year. 

"This situation is going to put our students at risk of contracting the deadly COVID-19. Our preparations to resume studies have been disorganized," the principal said.