POOR HEALTH SERVICES AFFECT THE DIGNITY OF EVERY UGANDAN WOMAN!

When the women of Uganda could not take it any more following the disconnection of Water and Electricity at Uganda's main referral hospital Mulago; they joined forces in the Call for Action By Government On Failing Public Health Services. Forum For Women in Democracy,
Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA-U), National Association of Women’s Organisations in Uganda (NAWOU), Uganda National NGO Forum, Uganda Women’s Network made a statement on the appalling state of health service delivery in the country.Here is the full statement that was read out by Ms Rita Achiro of the Uganda Women's Network. Here is the statement in full.

Today 31st March 2014 as women citizens of Uganda we protest the manner in which the government has handled the public health sector and failed to prioritize it. Due to poverty majority of Ugandans can only access public health facilities, and most women fall in this category. We are concerned about the state of our health services especially the recent catastrophe where the National Referral Hospital; Mulago Hospital was disconnected from water supply for a week. Apart from this, there are weekly newspaper reports of health workers at all levels and in different districts striking over non-payment of salaries for months and poor working conditions that make it difficult to discharge their duties. We all know that women suffer most when careless management issues take place in such a key sector - these are our mothers, sisters, and wives. As already reported in the media, Mwana Mugimu clinic was the most hit by this water crisis that caused a diarrhea outbreak leaving our children to die and mothers left in pain.

No one could have imagined that in the year 2014, water services could be disconnected from a major referral hospital of any country in any part of this world. We condemn the management by crisis, which is what Government appears to be doing. That the water bill could get to Ug. Shs.1 billion is bad enough, but that it gets to 6 billion means someone is sleeping on their job and heads must roll! Government is in charge of the budget process every year and it must have known that Mulago was not paying its water bill. That Government could let this go on means that their priorities are misplaced. Indeed the most recent example of such misplaced priorities is the fact that NRM legislators have spent the past one month and more discussing how to prolong the President in power, instead of meeting to provide solutions to the service delivery crisis the country is in.

At the height of all this, we should also remember that Uganda has so far lost UGX 4,163,500,000,000 trillion to public theft with impunity since the year 2000. These funds could have transformed the health sector by addressing safe motherhood, providing adequate salaries for health workers, ensuring sufficient drugs in all government hospitals and health centers, and revamping most of the dilapidated health centers and hospitals. Unfortunately, 16 women continue to die every day due to maternal health related complications and yet all the causes are purely preventable.

This whole month of March, Ugandan women joined the rest of the world to commemorate the International Women’s Day under the theme Inspiring Change. Ironically, in this same month the National Referral Hospital went without water for a week; something which is unacceptable to the Ugandan women, who are the majority of caregivers. Playing with health is playing with women’s lives. It is trampling our dignity, it is unacceptable!

We therefore call upon government to come up and address the management issues in all the health centers and hospitals towards their smooth running and ability to efficiently provide services to the citizens. Government should fulfill all its duties and promises as enshrined in the Constitution and other international treaties regarding the health sector of Uganda. The right to health is a key ingredient to the right to life, which is an inalienable right, when Government fails to fix the health care system, it grossly affects and undermines the right to life.

As Ugandan citizens, we must rise up and challenge such issues and demand that the stolen funds be returned and special attention be given to revamping the health sector and particularly to improving the areas that concern women like addressing maternal health.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
For more information contact: Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) feedbck@fowode.org 0414 286063Uganda Association of Women Lawyers (FIDA-U)fida@fidauganda.org 0414 530848National Association of Women’s Organisations in Uganda (NAWOU) nawou@nawouganda.org Uganda National NGO Forum info@ngoforum.or.ug 0312 260373 Uganda Women’s Network info@uwonet.or.ug 041 4286539