Ugandan Medical officer dies in traditional Shrine

BUTALEJA-UGANDA/NEWSDAY: A nurse in Butaleja has died in a customary shrine while seeking for healing.

Silvia Hasahya, a nurse attached to Busolwe hospital in Butaleja district and a resident of Bugangu village in Busabi Sub County, died on Sunday at a shrine where she had been admitted for two days.

She died in the shrine of Balam Muyeye, who is also the defense secretary of Nawandyo village, Budumba Sub-county in Butaleja district.

According to Rachel Namanja, the deceased’s sister, her sibling has been struggling with an unknown illness for the last one week.

She said that when her sister started to feel unwell, she was admitted at Busolwe hospital, but when her condition worsened, she was referred to Mount Elgon Hospital in Mbale, but they were never given a diagnosis of the disease.

Namanja says that the hospital then gave them some medication but they opted to have it from home, but their mother advised them to seek the help of a traditional healer in one one of the shrines within the village.

Balam Muyeye, the owner of the shrine explains that the nurse went to his home for treatment after having tried Busolwe and Mt. Elgon hospitals unsuccessfully. He adds that the deceased complained of chest pains but his diagnosis found that she was possessed with spirits.

The area district councilor Wycliff Mutono says that when the deceased was taken to Mbale, tests were conducted and she was found with no illness including Covid-19 which everyone thought the nurse had contracted.

Mutono wonders how a nurse would end up in a shrine, criticizing the president for not pronouncing a closure on the shrines which many people in the district opt to go when they become sick.

John Wamalwa, the chairperson of the Butaleja District Traditional Healers Association confirmed that Hasahya died in the shrine of one of his members.

He condemned the traditional healers who have continued to operate their businesses despite the lockdown and threatened to engage the police to crackdown on all such healers who embark on treating people with illnesses that are not known to them and defy the presidential directive of the lockdown of the country.

Bukedi South Police Spokesperson Moses Mugwe said that the police is still investigating the circumstances of Hasahya’s death. He said that they are yet to ascertain the actual cause of her death but condemned the fact that she was treated in a shrine.

“We are in a lockdown, no person is supposed to move from one place to another, so how could anyone have ended up in a shrine for treatment yet we have health facilities around?”  he wondered.

By URN