Friends For Peace In Africa

YASIIN MUGERWA (Monitor, Kampala - February 26, 2008)

PARLIAMENT

LIRA referral hospital which lost about 11 patients recently during a medical workers strike is in a sorry state, members of Parliament heard yesterday.

Dr Jane Aceng, the hospital medical superintendent, told the House Public Accounts Committee yesterday  that the hospital has no ambulance, drugs, incinerator and the theatre lights cannot function. She said most equipment needs replacement.

"The maternity ward is handling about 150 pregnant women yet its capacity is for only 22. Some women sleep on veranda and when it comes to immunisation of children," Ms Aceng said.

She said a big chunk of the hospital land was re-allocated by Lira district Local Government authorities to various institutions so the hospital cannot expand.
Ms Aceng said the recent strike in which eleven people  died could have been averted if officials in the Ministry of Health had intervened in time.

According to Dr Aceng , the staff went on strike, claiming that their risk allowance, approved by the government last year, had not been paid.

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