She can hardly walk
anymore and the doctor say that she needs to get her surgery done before it's
too late. She has been suffering with this disease for so long that she does
not know how to leave without pain. The parents who stay in Mateete a town in Sembabule
district have done everything possible. This includes even visiting witches.
When they could finally mobilize enough money to come to Mulago in Kampala,
they decide to come and try. They have been at the hospital 4 weeks and now
they don’t have what to eat. The father of little Alice went back to the
village to work in one of the large village coffee plantations to try and make
some money. He earns about 12000 a week
which he had to send to his wife at Mulago.
There was nothing to
eat for these two yesterday until the patient lying next to them on this
crowded floor shared his meal. The little girl cannot talk anymore, you can see
and feel her pain as she struggles to breathe. She looks to tired to keep her
eyes open. One cannot believe she is 13 as the mother says because she looks
too small for a 9 year old. Her story like many around her is disheartening. It
could drive Hitler to tears.
The problem is, she
is not a celebrity, she is not in a upscale school. She also has no media
presence say Facebook, twitter or Instagram. The mother cannot even afford to
call a radio station, not that she knows any. There is not even a single way in
which she could raise this money. The truth is, she is going to die, definitely
going to die. Not that death is such a bad thing, but because she could have
been saved.
The next intern
checks on her with sorrow and struggles back her tears. She explains to me her
condition with medical terms I cannot understand. From her conversation though
I manage to pick out that Alice could have been helped had we had the
facilities need around. She now needs about $30000 to travel to India for
treatment. That is about 105,000,000 Uganda shillings. It is hard to tell the
mother to give up because she already has. She plans to go back to the village
and prepare her young girl for death.
In case you did not
know, Alice is one of many Ugandans in the same dire situation. This week alone
for example, there are more than five people looking for funds to take them to
different parts of the world for treatment. And as if that’s not enough, the
interns at Mulago hospital are on strike over non-payment. But before you think
that everyone is suffering, let me bring this also to your attention.
A few weeks ago,
Muhanga told the world that she managed to sell her goats for 10 billion
shillings. After some days of trolling, we left that at that. Then there was
Mutabazi who used 105 million to travel to Rwanda, which is the money Alice
needs for treatment. But that’s not so bad, right? Our MPs who we so dearly
loved and voted to parliament have after exempting themselves from any kind of
taxation decided to approve for themselves a supplementary budget in excess 10
billion to buy new cars. That is before I mention that the government said
there was no money to buy a new cancer machine when the one we had broken down.
We shall therefore
continue to troll our `hilarious` leaders. We shall watch our loved ones die.
Just so you know, let me take this opportunity to inform our legislators, that
you have undressed and we have seen your nakedness. We are waiting until you realize
that all along, you have been naked. The revolution was not televised.
image by daily monitor
