EC should give guidance on campaigns at health facilities

The obviously contradicting statements and opinions attributed to a number of our leaders both over what I will call campaigning at /or within our health facilities are quite telling. The fact that the Electoral Commission has not come out to give guidance on this matter is equally telling.

For close to three weeks now, a lot has been said over the visiting of health centres by some of the candidates for the 2016 elections. In two of these cases, so far, the local leadership has already taken steps to be seen to “discipline” medical providers for their unpatriotic gestures. Whereas in one case (Abim Hospital), the three nurses are accused of indiscipline for allowing one candidate to see the decay and lack of everything that is expected in a health facility; in another case in Kayunga District, the medical superintendent was quizzed by the district police leaders for not allowing the pinning of posters of the NRM candidate in the hospita.

Before one gets to appreciate what is expected of the minders of these terminally ill health facilities (given the pictures in the media covering most of our regional health facilities) basing on the above two cases, the press reports about a minister praising the administrators of Kabale Regional Referral Hospital for blocking another candidate, from accessing the hospital’s premises during his tour of that region recently. (See: Minister praises hospital for blocking Mbabazi, Daily Monitor, December 20).

Reading from the statements attributed to the leaders who acted the way they did, it is evident that there are two challenges the country is facing. One is that there is a lot of decay and neglect in our health facilities, a fact that every informed Ugandan and the international community have known for years even without the candidates visiting them. Our leadership, for not wanting to be seen to agree to the fact of decay and neglect of these facilities, want this dirty linen hidden. To them, therefore, talking about it let alone showing their dilapidated state to the public is an offence.

Secondly, the Electoral Commission may have missed out on guiding both the candidates and the general public on which areas the candidates must not go to as they canvas for votes.
So to me, the EC should guide Ugandans on this subject. If it is alright to block one candidate from accessing a health facility in one region, it should as well be okay to block the pinning of posters of another candidate (and all of them if you asked me) on and in the premises of these facilities since both are a form of complaining, which would disrupt provision of services in these facilities.
Frank Mutagubya,
franmutam@yahoo.com