On Tuesday during the plenary, the Leader of Opposition in Parliament Mathias Mpuuga Nsamba informed the House that the Kawempe North Member of Parliament Muhammad Ssegirinya is totally ill and is in a dire state.
He explained that although Parliament offered to make an intervention in offering a leeway so that the members get special medical treatment, there is nothing has been done yet the accused legislators (Ssegirinya and Makindye West’s Allan Ssewanyana) are still incarcerated despite their worrying health statuses.
“When I visited Hon Ssegirinya on Thursday, he was clearly in pain. He was evacuated on Saturday to Mulago and the family was not informed formally until on Monday when somebody tiptoed and told them that the Honorable member is in a dire state of health. As head of this institution I thought I owed his family a public duty to raise a red flag before his colleagues and peers in this House that his health has been neglected by the state and that if anything goes wrong, the people to blame would have known that it’s in public I communicated that the Member is ill. For some reason, his personal doctors have not been involved,”Mpuuga noted.
He added that although Ssegirinya’s health is increasingly deteriorating, the state is still holding it in secrecy. He also disclosed that his relatives and personal doctors have been blocked to see him.
“On Monday one of his attorneys visited him and told me that anything can happen to this Honorable member, I’m here to raise a red flag for you to intervene because even those who want to prosecute him, will not prosecute a dead man.”
However, Frank Baine the spokesperson of the Uganda Prisons Services refuted Mpuuga’s allegations, calling them a bunch of lies because even at the time Ssegirinya was evacuated from Luzira Murchison Bay Hospital, he was with his personal doctor and his family members.
“His doctors see him, family members as well see him and even his lawyers. The leader of Opposition himself went and saw him, so I don’t know what type of seeing he means,” he said.
Ssegirinya’s illness started with a foot that was rotting and he alludes that it was a result of inhuman torture by the state operatives. However, his health has been deteriorating which forced the prison authorities at Kigo prison to shift him to Luzira Murchison Bay Hospital. Nevertheless, at Luzira his health situation has continued to worsen which forced his evacuation to Mulago National referral hospital where he is currently receiving treatment.
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