Discharged patients refuse to leave hospital over free meals

In Summary

The patients say there is nothing to eat in the village and they may end up starving to death once sent back

MASAKA. With famine ravaging the countryside, waking up to free meals of porridge with milk for breakfast, posho and beans for lunch and supper as well as pilao (meat and rice) served on Wednesdays has proved too tasty for patients discharged from Masaka hospital to return home.
The three meals a day have now created some unintended consequences. Now, several of the patients admitted, treated and told to go home have refused to leave because of the free meals. Mr Eleazer Mugisha, the Masaka hospital principal, says for the past two months, some in-patients have been missing out on meals because their colleagues who are discharged have refused to leave.

“We have since learnt that many of our patients who are discharged never go back home but instead stay in the wards so that they continue enjoying the free meals,” Mr Mugisha said.
He said the hospital managers are now looking for ways of sorting out the ‘unwanted patients’ since the meals cooked at the facility are only for patients admitted. Mr Mugisha said the hospital spends Shs15 million on meals monthly and does not have any supplementary budget to cater for the excess number of people who crave the free food.

Asked why he didn’t want to return home, a man who identified himself as Ssalongo Kamoga said he could not abandon the free meals and return to his hunger-stricken village.
“There is nothing to eat in the village and if I am sent back, I may end up starving,” he said.
Ms Annet Komugisha, an in-patient caretaker, said many ‘genuine patients’ end up missing food because those who were discharged and refused to leave, always arrive first at the serving table.
Away from meals, discharged patients are also causing overcrowding in the hospital wards at night as they occupy beds meant for in-patients.
Mr Mugisha says they plan to screen all their patients and those found to have been discharged will be chased away. People in Masaka sub-region, as are many others in rural Uganda, are staring starvation in the face as a result of food shortages blamed on the persistent dry spells which have scorched crops and dried up pasture for livestock.
The hospital
Constructed in 1927, Masaka hospital receives more than 2,000 in-patients daily. Established as a a treatment centre for syphilis, the hospital was elevated to referral status in 1995 to offer services to the greater southern region districts. Since then, the hospital management has been complaining of lack of space to accommodate the huge number of patients who seek medical services until recently when the Japanese government built a multi-billion outpatient and health complex.
The hospital also received funding from the Pakistani University of Lahore to build a diagnostic, imaging centre, a cardiac centre besides upgrading the hospital. The construction of the four-stored diagnostic centre and a medical college that will use Masaka Hospital as a teaching facility are both ongoing.