Lyantonde Covid Taskforce authorities have attributed the increasing cases of Coronavirus Disease (COVID19) in the district to the delayed funds to enable constant follow up on the patients in home-based care and awareness campaigns.
According to the task force, the Health workers, Village Heath Teams, surveillance and management teams lack facilitation, transport means, personal protective equipment and other supplies to do their work efficiently.
Although the government allocated sh320m to fight covid19 in the district, the funds have not been released.
Currently, they said, it is becoming very difficult to conduct regular testing of patients due to lack of enough protective gears as well as monitoring those in home-based care.
According to Dr. Moses Nkanika, the Lyantonde District Health Officer, Lyantonde community transmissions have gone up in the last two-and-a-half months of the second wave.
This comes amid a lack of financial resources to enable the front-line staff and task force teams to run competently. He said that they registered 140 positive cases in the first wave while 1,295 people were screened in the second wave and 312 were found positive.
Referrals were ten and those on home-based care were 302 while those admitted to care treatment unit were four and the number of affected health workers is 20 in two months.
Cumulatively, he added, they have screened more than 2000 people and 469 of them had covid. Sixteen were referred to Mbarara and Masaka Regional Referral Treatment Centres while 404 were put on home-based care and the rest admitted at Lyantonde hospital due to unavailable circumstances.
“Ideally the general hospital was not supposed to admit any Covid patient but whenever we referred patients to our Mbarara and Masaka RRHs, we would find them filled up and they tell us to manage the patients. The number of deaths after the referral was four,” he noted.
Catherine Kamwiine, the Resident District Commissioner, combating the pandemic has become difficult without funds to run different Covid activities especially testing and close follow up on patients in different communities.
She explained that they are facing a challenge of late release of funds and other resources to help the taskforce and health teams run.
“It was a challenge in the first wave and this time round in the second wave which raises issues. We are into three months of the second wave but we have not received recourses,” she noted.
Kamwiine added that managing patients in home-based care is not simple especially without funds because they often keep interacting with other community members which have increased the transmission of the deadly disease.
On Thursday last week, a Parliamentary Covid Taskforce from Central Uganda visited the Lyantonde to ascertain the situation.
Dr. Michael Bukenya, the Bunya County MP, who led the delegation, said that Lyantonde has a functional District taskforce but they lack resources to finance their operations.
He explained that they are just improvising and stretching so hard to contain the spread of the disease. Apart from the financial resources, Bukenya added that the district task force lacks transport means to do surveillance.
Bukenya said that Lyantoonde does not have a proper treatment unit for Covid patients but they are improvising space to treat them. “Although the hospital is not allowed to admit and treat patients, for Lyantonde’s case, it came out of necessity because the treatment centres in Masaka and Mbarara RRHs are usually full,” he said.
However, Bukenya noted, the delayed release of the sh320m which Lyantonde was allocated has also hindered operations of VHTs, LCIs and other task forces. “The money may come when the wave has reduced,” he added.
Pauline Kemirembe, the Lyantonde Woman MP, said that the regional hospitals are overwhelmed by the increasing cases of Covid which is why they are to pass a resolution to establish fully fledged treatment centres in general hospitals to admit and treat the patients.
Joseph Gonzaga Ssewungu, the Kalungu West PM, said they established the health workers have no hardship and risk allowances to boost their morale in the fight against the pandemic.
He added that they are to recommend the risk allowances for all health workers in Uganda for their great determination to serve Ugandans in hard times.
Fred Muhangi, the Lyantonde LC5 Chairperson, appealed to the government to re-emphasise vaccination and regular awareness campaigns as some of the key remedies in ending the Covid pandemic.
He added that appealed for timely delivery of the Personal Protection Equipments (PPEs) to safeguard frontline staff from contracting the disease.
English 