It’s election time here. I planned start some commentary, my assessment of candidates real soon but somethings can’t wait. On my way work every morning , I am subjected to this huge billboard from President Museveni’s campaign (will bring the picture soon). It’s the president all dressed up visiting a hospital-probably at the opening of some health facility but then the message he is sending is that he is been in good charge of our health care system.
And then I’ve got a story of one woman Josephine Adongo.
Josephine Adongo’s heart leapt when she heard that two doctors from Kampala were offering free medical exams in Soroti. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer at a regional hospital more than a year previously, but unable to afford to travel to the capital for treatment.
Adongo, a 68-year-old farmer who lost everything during Uganda’s long conflict against the insurgent Lords Resistance Army, was diagnosed with cancer at the local hospital in May 2009. But the only cancer treatment centre in Uganda was 300 kilometres away.
She was disappointed to find that the visiting doctors had only come to screen women and refer anyone with dangerous signs to Kampala. Read the rest at IPS Africa for whom I wrote this heartbreaking story.
So this picture of worried Adongo and that of the president in his campaign are two things I can’t reconcile, not yet, may be will never!
Rosebell Kagumire 