NO DOCTORS IN SIGHT: Patients swamp hospitals as medics strike continues
As the doctors strike in Uganda continues, I gained access to Kawempe National Referral Hospital in Kampala.
There is only one intern doctor on the ward, and no specialist in sight, in the half hour that I was there."You're too many. The health workers are few," says a nurse to a mother in labour, who hobbles over to her for assistance.
"You need to pray to the president to pay the doctors," she adds.
There are at least four uniformed security guards patrolling the floor. One, brandishing a club, asks my fixer and I what we want.
We stick close to the truth, saying we are here to visit a doctor for a private matter.
A health worker had agreed to sneak me in to witness the impact of the strike by senior and intern doctors, which has been going on for more than a month to demand better pay and working conditions.
Under the stairs on the outside of the hospital building, about 30 people are sprawled on mats among bags, buckets and kitchenware. They are the patients’ attendants, and have to wait here for lack of space inside. One of them takes us to her sister, a new mother waiting to be discharged.
Under normal circumstances, Apio would have gone home on Wednesday when she had her baby girl. She vacated her hospital bed within hours of giving birth, to make space for the next mother. But it is 4pm, and she is still waiting for paperwork to be finalised at the postnatal ward.
The 28-year-old is waiting with about 15 other new mothers, all looking exhausted and eager for their name to be called by the nurse.
With a national doctor to patient ratio of about 1:25,000, working here even on normal days is stressful. And now with reduced staff because of the strike, even more so.
Source: BBCÂ
