BY EDWARD MAKANIKA AND FAHAD MASEREKA
Over four thousand people in Kahendero village, Muhokya sub-county, Kasese district, have been left without a functional health centre to go to.
Kahendero Health Centre II has been closed for several days now due to lack of drugs and personnel.
Local Council One chairman Juma Alube says the centre is closed most of the time because there are no personnel to man the centre.
Alube says that the nurses supposed to man the centre have to travel long distances and sometimes fail to make it. The centre does not have staff quarters to house the workers.
A Kahendero resident who identified herself as Rose Akizi says the time when they find the centre open, they are told it is out of drugs. Akizi says that since they hear that the National Medical Stores delivers the drugs, they do not understand why the centre does not have stock.
Jennifer Tukiringa says many pregnant women have been stranded at the health centre because the nurses are unavailable when needed. Locals with knowledge on how to help a woman give birth are sometimes called in to aid the deperate mothers to be.
The dilapidated and infrequent functioning of the health centre is not Kahendero’s only challenge. The area is suffering through a dry spell with access to piped water very hard to come by.
Alube says that many of the boreholes and water points that were connected to piped water in 1992 have fallen into disrepair. The majority of residents who cannot afford to pay 1,500 shillings for a jerrycan of water have to trek long distances looking for water.
