The management of Mbale Regional Referral Hospital has disagreed with the Parliamentary COVID-19 Taskforce assessing the COVID-19 responses by the government on the number of ambulances delivered to the facility by the Health Ministry.
It all started after the Hospital Director, Dr. Emmanuel Tugaineyo informed the legislators led by Dr. Patrick Mutono, the Butebo County Member of Parliament how they were struggling to manage COVID-19 cases in the entire region with only two ambulances.
Dr. Patrick Mutono couldn’t have any of this, saying that the Ministry of Health had informed them that they delivered 8 ambulances to Mbale Regional Referral Hospital to support the management of COVID-19 cases.
However, Dr. Tugaineyo insisted that they only have two ambulances, which they are finding hard to manage due to lack of fuel. Dr. Mutono tasked the hospital management to establish where the six other ambulances meant for the hospital are.
On the issue of fuel, Dr. Mutono said the Ministry informed them that the hospitals receive Shillings 960,000 per day to facilitate the ambulances. Timothy Batuwa, the Jinja West Member of Parliament, read out the number of the ambulances, saying they were meant to station at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital each serving different areas within the region.
Karim Masaba, Mbale Industrial Division Member of parliament said the committee will ask the Health Minister to explain the whereabouts of the ambulances and the money allocated to facilitate them.
Dr. Tugaineyo promised to follow up on the other ambulances since he was not aware the hospital was given eight of them. “I am hearing it from here that we have eight ambulances, I will make a follow up to understand where these ambulances are,” he said.
