A female covid-19 patient who recently exposed the dire situation of Masaka Regional Referral Hospital’s Isolation centre,has been placed under investigation, according to Masaka Resident District Commissioner Herman Ssentongo.
Ssentongo,who is also the district covid-19 taskforce chairperson said on Thursday that the patient- Mary Aliona might have had a hidden agenda in recording the video that has since gone viral on social media.
He said they are yet to find out how Aliona, a former nurse ended up in Kyotera where she was picked from yet it is currently under virus-induced lockdown with no vehicles are allowed to move.
“We have intelligence information that she was trying to get out of the country to go to Tanzania through Mutukula, so as to proceed with her journey to South Korea but we all know Mutukula and Kyotera are under total lockdown being near the border. We have started to investigate how she got there and whom she travelled with to Mutukula,” Ssentongo said.
Last week, Aliona, asymptomatic Covid-19 patient claimed that the isolation structure had no electricity, water and that patients were given little portions of food adding that patients were not regularly checked on by medical workers.
“The conditions in this hospital are really horrible. We rarely see doctors, doctors just come in to just drop a medication that has no name for us to use,” she says adding they are put in a section that had been abandoned many years ago.
In response, the Ministry of Health was quick to discredit the allegations saying that they were just gross exaggerations by the patient.
“Our attention has been drawn to a video by an asymptomatic COVID-19 female patient at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital that is currently making rounds on social media. The patient who recorded the video arrived at the Hospital about two days ago after she tested and was found positive for COVID-19 at Mutukula border point trying to cross to Tanzania. Preliminary epidemiological reports indicate that the patient was trying to travel to South Korea through Tanzania. Unfortunately, this did not happen after her sample was confirmed for COVID-19.” read the statement in part.
It added that with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the hospital set aside a 20-bed capacity ward for treating COVID-19 patients and the decision to improvise a temporary structure to care for female patients was due to increasing number of male patients.
“With an increase in the number of males diagnosed with COVID-19, the hospital took the decision and improvised a temporary structure to care for female patients as a measure to avert potential challenges that may occur when the males mix with females. The patients will be transferred to a well-known refurnished main ward as soon as renovation works are completed.”
“The structure captured in the patient’s video was used as an emergency measure as the hospital expands its bed capacity to over 50 to accommodate more patients,” the statement read.
The Ministry also stated that patients are given sufficient meals and that the facility has functional electrical and water system contrary to what the patient alleged.
Further, contrary to allegations in the video, the Ministry says medical workers check on patients regularly, and on time to time, the medical staff guide patients on their prescribed medications.
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