It was surprising (and really sad) to see this article as the top story on the New York Times last weekend. I’m looking forward to hearing the views of people in the CHAI (Clinton Health Access Initiative) office because the work they (and soon I) will do is all focused on working with the Ministry of Health to strengthen their efforts and provide technical assistance.
It is really disheartening to see how much the health spending by the government itself has been cut, though I’m not sure if I believe the magnitude of those numbers based on what I have heard so far. Either way, there clearly needs to be greater priority placed on health spending – even if the government kept their spending levels stable, the money allocated to health doesn’t even come close to the level necessary to provide an acceptable level of care to citizens. We’re talking about numbers well under $5 per citizen – there would be huge problems whether or not the government halved spending levels.
When we were in Gulu, we had dinner with Anita’s sister who works at a private hospital in Gulu. She talked about a patient who had come in with major cuts on her body – they tried to stitch her wounds, but she had lost too much blood to be saved by stitches alone. They couldn’t get blood for her for several hours, and by the time the blood came, the patient had died. She said they wouldn’t have even been able to stitch her had she not brought money for stitches – sometimes as a doctor she would have to choose to buy stitches for a patient who could not afford them because even something as simple as stitches was not provided by the hospital.
Anita's sister and Isaac in Gulu-
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