Campusbee Writer “Health is wealth”, so goes a popular adage, …a statement that is a rather harsh paradox in contemporary Uganda where health is unheard of unless it’s in the negative! From ill quipped hospitals to half baked -medicine stealing doctors. Today’s roller coaster takes us through the hitherto prestigious MUK hospital. A university littered with ignominy,sexually transmitted marks, and strikes.Campus bee presents to you the rot therein, It’s university policy, everyone at MUK is expected to pay 10k registration fee at the hospital and it’s the only hospital recognized by the university .Located behind tuskys supermarket,hidden from view, it’s more of a giant dispensary than an abandoned health unit…rusty iron sheets cover the hospital’s miniature roof, an eerily silence and aura of a deserted homestead strikes a visitor,whose discomfort is reaffirmed by the mean face of a young lady who would have been pretty save for the scowl on the woman’s face. I have been here before so am not bothered, walk past her inside the hospital, cleaners are busy, scrubbing tired floors, a musaawo sneaks in, it’s around 10am but he isn’t bothered,…I join the queue of sick looking students waiting to see a doctor,three unsettled doctors are on duty.
I attempt some small talk, with a young lady, a 3rd year BBA students who heaps bitter praise upon Ddumba’s clinic, it’s her second day but the absence of power has frustrated her efforts of accessing a laboratory test, she has to wait for power. I convey my sympathy and go to the loos, ..the paint is peeling off the walls, the flash system is messed up and the nauseating stench herein is striking.No tissue, and faulty sinks. ..The doctor bellows out my name;his tiny room is surprisingly neat. ………. Certificates of merit litter the room, he doesn’t offer me a seat till I ask for one, he literally bolts through the examination process and like a magician, asks whether I have some 5k, I do. He casually takes the money and gives me an ordinary looking Constirelax sachet to suck.
I am struck by the “devil may care, but I don’t, care attitude “he pocketed the money with no guilt whatsoever. He conclusively ended my examination and sent me to the Lab. ..Waiting for lab results is tense , The mandatory HIV tests in absence of counselling are a suicidal time bomb. Thanks to google, I googled my results and my graph appeared normal , TIME check, I’ve spent half a day here, the doctor failed to diagnose my ailment,”I THINK you are suffering from. ..!”but he went ahead to prescribe drugs, or rather nutritional supplements ,he showed them to be in exchange for 40k…the absence of which prompted him to bellow ,”next! “…I moved out more bemused than disappointed.
I compared him with the hypocritical dentist, who makes one pay for a free service, offers no receipt and places a dash at the amount space while gospel music plays sweetly from his phone allow through the fraudulent bargain. The dispensary is filled up with emptiness, the quasi pharmacist brandishes a paracetamol here and an amoxylin,and with mock gladness and heavy sarcasm I thank her. There I am, without a solution but with a pitiful realisation, “man eateth and fooleth people where he worketh. “We build for the future. ..with mud and wattle ???
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