1. LET US INTEREST INVESTORS INTO
HOSPITAL EQUIPMENT FOR BETTER
HEALTH OUTCOMES
The Sunday Vision, July 5, 2015, had an
article: There is hope for Ugandan health
care, by Dr Ian Clarke. The article tells of a
family with relevant connections whose
poor baby got a fractured head -thanks to
expert and qualified doctors, its health was
restored.
The article proclaims that Uganda’s
healthcare is okay and invites the general
public to avoid all negative stories that
protest Uganda’s healthcare as
substandard.
The article chose a good story: a preserve of
the rich, connected and residents in urban
places where state of the art private and
public health facilities that handle health
emergencies are converged.
Health facilities that a majority of Ugandans
got to either have tragedies or escapades.
Communities, it no wonder are willing to
contribute to even assist poor citizens for
better treatment abroad. Exporting patients
abroad robs our country of critic revenue
that can be invested if only local investors
injected money into buying medical devises
for major surgeries.
Stories are told of health workers’ brain
drain, I submit that it’s greatly dependent of
the lack of relevant medical tools to
facilitate workers practising to the extreme
of their skill rather than meagre salaries. If
Health is Wealth is anything to go by,
investors’ choice in health equipment is not
only a lucrative novel business idea, it
persuades health workers to practise, cut
patient rights violations to zero, eradicates
infant, maternal and new-born mortality.
Their [patient’s and health workers] story is
twofold, health worker views and that of
the patient plight. I elect to start with the
health workers untold challenges, which are
the gist of this response. Employment law
demands the employer to provide
employees with the tools of work, short of
that avails an employee a defence- vicarious
liability. However, it must be noted that the
health worker as a professional person too,
has a right to withdraw labour very much to
the chagrin to the Hippocratic Oath.
Wherever you look health service deliver is
poor and the alternative private for profit
providers have commercialised treatment
which relegates citizens to death. Health
service in Uganda has become an amenity
which is a preserve of the rich or well-
connected and the disadvantaged lose
bread winners thus shattering most dreams
of family members. To reed Uganda or
preventable death or health workers
defecting to politics or finding greener
pastures, health entrepreneurship is the
way to go!
Talibita Moses is a lawyer working with
Uganda National Health users/ Consumers
Organisation. mtalibita@unhco.or.ug