FOWODE joins protests over seized Matany hospital ambulance

Women affected by the confiscation of an ambulance belonging to Matany Missionary Hospital in Napak district have joined a demonstration by health workers. About 200 women, with support from Forum for Women in Democracy, an NGO, on Friday joined the demonstration, demanding that the seized vehicle be returned. 

Court bailiffs seized the ambulance after the hospital failed to pay Shs35 million in damages to a student wrongfully dismissed over alleged theft of drugs. 

The women are appealing to government to intervene and have the ambulance returned. The protesters are also demanding that the Moroto Chief Magistrate, Mr Moses Katorogo Mutanzidwa, be replaced because as they say, he has failed to make them understand justice better.

On August 1, court bailiffs confiscated the ambulance, which the hospital had been using to ferry patients from remote areas. Chief Magistrate Moses Mutazindwa Katorogo last month ruled that the hospital wing of Matany School of Nursing, had wrongfully dismissed the student. The magistrate thus awarded the student Shs35 million in damages. But the hospital could not raise the money, compelling bailiffs to attach the vehicle.

Ms Lucy Nachap, a mother said the ambulance has been helping to transport expectant mothers from villages to deliver at the hospital. Ms Betty Nakut, a mother said the confiscation of the only hospital ambulance has put their lives as mothers in danger and appealed to the office of the First Lady to intervene and retrieve the ambulance.

The women were calmed down by the Napak Resident District Commissioner, Mr Beka Dudu, who lauded them for their concern saying it is their constitutional right to access health care. He assured them that the government was committed to recovering the ambulance.

Meanwhile, another group of elders is also expected to stage their protest tomorrow over the confiscated ambulance. The Matany hospital administrator, Br Guenther Naehrich, said the confiscation of the ambulance has caused a lot of stress and worries within the community.

The Daily Monitor last week reported that following the confiscation of the ambulance, 20 mothers with delivery complications had died within 10 days since they could not be transported to Matany, the biggest hospital in the area.

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