VANDALISM ROCKS SERVICE DELIVERY AT BWERA HOSPITAL

The multi million ultra modern Bwera Hospital constructed by Government of Uganda in 1997 and commissioned by HE Yoweri Museveni risks being termed a white elephant thanks to a wave of thefts that has been visited to it in the recent past. The most targeted are the solar lighting systems. Nearly all staff quarters have been stripped of solar panels and batteries. The same is happening to other buildings like the wards and administration block. However, amazingly no one has been arrested in connection with this wave of theft in spite the fact that the hospital has a full fledged security detail. According to the Medical Superintendent, Dr. Seith Tibenda, the theft has been extended to the curtains in the windows in the private wards and other critical medical equipment. He blamed this theft partly on the hospital staffs who have failed to deliver on their duty of looking after the patients and the facilities within the hospital. On his part, the Hospital Administrator, Mr. Buthalha Pedson, said the thefts in the hospital may be orchestrated by the staffs in connivance with unscrupulous characters in the community. He reported that he has designed measures to stem the theft which includes changing the attitude and morals of both the staff and the community.

These revelations were made to RWECO at a press conference organized at Bwera Hospital and attended by among others the Secretary for Social Services Kasese District Local Council, members of the Mpondwe – Lhubiriha Town Council and the Medical Superintendent Bwera Hospital who also stepped in for the District Health Officer.
The theft and vandalism at Bwera Hospital has adversely affected service delivery.
During the same press conference Dr. Tibenda castigated the mushrooming privately run health training centres which he described as illegal and called upon the district authorities to close them up immediately. He was responding to complaints by the community based monitors about the operations of the training schools which were churning out half baked nursing assistants who are running drug shops in the communities. These drug shops run by the quack nursing assistants pose a serious risk to the sick who seek medical attention there. The Medical Superintendent agreed to go to radio to sensitize the communities about these illegal medical training schools and their quack graduates.
by Timothy Balikenga