Uganda Health Matters | Muniini K. Mulera

Why the Covid-19 pandemic invites us to give thanks to God

By Muniini K. MuleraUganda Uganda Health MattersApril 12, 20210 comments

Images of family and other community gatherings in Uganda continue to show a very high disregard for basic preventive measures against the spread of Covid-19. A friend in Kampala told me over the weekend that people have pretty much declared the pandemic to be over. He added that ...

Why I am getting the Covid-19 vaccine

By Muniini K. MuleraUganda Uganda Health MattersMarch 8, 20211 comments

I received my first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine last week. The second dose will be administered early next month. This is one of four vaccines that have, so far, been approved by Canada for prevention of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus ...

Mary Aliona, a detainee at Masaka Hospital, is a hero, not a villain

By Muniini K. MuleraUganda Uganda Health MattersJune 29, 20200 comments

A lady called Mary Aliona finds herself in the midst of a storm that is not her doing. By recording and releasing a video of the extremely appalling conditions in which she and others were being held at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital, she incurred the wrath of the Ministry of Health ...

COVID-19, misinformation epidemic and pandemic of fear

By Muniini K. MuleraUganda Uganda Health MattersApril 6, 20200 comments

Philly Bongoley Lutaaya has been on my mind lately. Lutaaya, an outstanding and popular Ugandan pop-musician in the 1970s and 1980s, was one of the first prominent people to reveal that he had contracted the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the cause of the acquired immune ...

Health Care Corruption in Uganda: A Matter of Life and Death

By Muniini K. MuleraUganda Uganda Health MattersNovember 20, 20180 comments

As we continue our conversation about the dangerous levels of corruption in Uganda’s health care service, there are two points that need emphasis. First, the majority of Ugandan doctors and other health workers are dedicated, honest professionals. A lot of what I am sharing ...

Why Uganda should scrap tax-payer funded private health care

By Muniini K. MuleraUganda Uganda Health MattersNovember 12, 20180 comments

I understand why patients scramble to get referred to India and other distant lands for healthcare. First, there is a deep distrust of the Uganda health services – even at private hospitals. This, together with a natural tendency to believe that health care abroad is always ...

Corrupt alliance between Ugandan doctors and Indian hospitals hurts patients

By Muniini K. MuleraUganda Uganda Health MattersNovember 6, 20180 comments

When Dr. Nuwa Masinde Muliro, a senior surgeon in Kampala, referred his patient to what he believed to be a reputable Health Centre in India, he did not expect anything except a consultation report and, hopefully, news of a good outcome. Instead the first communication Dr. Muliro ...

A surgeon's struggle to serve patients at Uganda's Mulago Hospital - By Dr. William Manyilirah, Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon Uganda Heart Institute

By Muniini K. MuleraUganda Uganda Health MattersOctober 29, 20181 comments

Dear colleagues. I don't normally write on this WhatsApp group, but I've been forced to do so. This morning, 26th October, my team and I went to the Main Operating Theatre (OT) of Mulago Hospital Complex to operate on two thoracic cases. The first patient was supposed ...

Why it takes a degree of insanity to be a surgeon at Mulago Hospital

By Muniini K. MuleraUganda Uganda Health MattersOctober 30, 20180 comments

When Dr. Joseph Buwembo, an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, visited Uganda in 2012, his mission was not only to see his relatives and enjoy his homeland, but also to give back to his people. He offered free neurosurgery on a baby that ...

Benefits of a higher tax on cigarettes beyond protecting Ugandan cigarette manufacturers.

By Talibita MosesUganda Uganda Health MattersFebruary 14, 20182 comments

In 2017 parliament of Uganda amended the excise duty Act no. 11 of 2014. The Excise duty (Amendment) Act no. 11 of 2017 in section 2 imposes different excise rates on locally and foreign made cigarettes (soft cap and Hinge lid). This amendment is a matter of contention in the ...

Grateful that I chose a career in medicine - By Dr. Jane Nannono

By Muniini K. MuleraUganda Uganda Health MattersMarch 21, 20170 comments

Students continue to graduate from the eleven or so universities in my country during this month of March. I graduated forty years ago and by then, there was one university: Makerere University. Currently there are six public universities. Forty years today, I ...

Forty years later, not ready to hang up the stethoscope

By Muniini K. MuleraUganda Uganda Health MattersMarch 20, 20170 comments

It has been forty years since our class took the final bow from undergraduate life at Makerere University. We had shared five long years of learning, of pushing each other to excel, of building friendships and of supporting each other through very difficult experiences. We ...

Uganda's Tobacco Control Act and the Shisha Craze

By Talibita MosesUganda Uganda Health MattersMarch 13, 20171 comments

It is 10 months since the tobacco Control Act entered into force on the 19th of May 2016. This law among others, banned Shisha, electronic cigarettes and related accessories including flavoured tobacco. It bans the advertising, promotion and sponsorships of tobacco and its products. ...

Ugandan citizen disease awareness and vigilance

By Talibita MosesUganda Uganda Health MattersOctober 25, 20160 comments

The president of Uganda launched a door-to-door disease prevention project in Sheema District, reported in the Daily Monitor of 28th of August, 2015, whose packaging included an Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM) and a Constituency Health Task Force, to bring quality ...

Stopping Hospital equipment theft is a citizen duty for Ugandans

By Talibita MosesUganda Uganda Health MattersJuly 12, 20160 comments

Prosecutions are initiated against government abuse of government property; hospital equipment thieves not isolated; we hear little of prosecution success. It is worthy my while that I interrogate why hospital property thieves go Scot-free? Have you ever heard ...

Isn’t Uganda hurting from health sector underfunding?

By Talibita MosesUganda Uganda Health MattersMay 9, 20161 comments

While before Uganda’s Parliamentary Health Committee, Dr Diana Atwine, head of medicines and health service delivery monitoring unit, explained Uganda’s state of public hospitals, maintaining that 60 % of health centres IVs are not functional, and the referral system at ...