Dear Christine, Thanks very much indeed for giving priority to this fundamental issue faced by current and prospective mothers in Uganda. Whether or not there were MDGs to be achieved, the state of our healthcare in general and maternal healthcare in particular, is completely unacceptable!
Let's hope the human rights perspective taken by your team will go along way into delivering an historic constitutional pronouncement on the right to maternal healthcare and the role of stakeholders in ensuring this right is respected. But then, how far can a legal pronouncement go in addressing the current situation when the need to survive far exceeds the altruism that ought to underpin professional healthcare provision? The Courts of Law may order compensation to victims or even fair remuneration packages for healthcare professionals (I doubt the latter). But they cannot order service providers to be empathetic with their patients or clients or customers. Empathy, sense of guilt/shame or altruism are things that we have increasingly expunged from our inner selves, hence some of our common failings (healthcare, education, lack of accountability in the public sphere etc). Nevertheless, I remain hopeful that initiatives such as the current petition to the Constitutional Court and our collective actions may in the long run improve the situation. Thanks very much indeed to you and the team of Lawyers for taking this up, let us know if we could add our voices or contribute in any constructive way. Kind regards, Maureen Sent from my iPhone On 8 Apr 2011, at 11:26, Christine Munduru <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear members please read through the CSO press release attached about the on > going case of the death of our sisters from Arua and Mityana Hospitals. I > had earlier on informed you that these cases will be taken to court and the > process has started. The Dean faculty of law makerere University and > Professor Joe Oloka have joined the case in addition to the other lawyers. > CSOs are mobilizing support for the case and it will be good for us to join > at our own various levels because this is intended to adress the policy > issues surrounding the deaths of women during delivery. From our research in > preparation for these cases, Arua regional hospital is leading in maternal > deaths in the country and Uganda is one of the leading countries in maternal > deaths in Africa and is very far from acheiving MDG 5. This is one of the > reasons I strongly feel that these cases should be tried in court to showcase > government what is happening. I would particularly urge the women who are so > vulner able during birth to join this cause, tomorrow may be you or me, sister, mother or daughter if we dont stand up to adress from the root course. > > Thanks > > Christine > <Press Release on Maternal Health Petition - FINAL.doc> > _______________________________________________ > WestNileNet mailing list > [email protected] > http://orion.kym.net/mailman/listinfo/westnilenet > > WestNileNet is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ > > All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > > The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including > attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. > _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ WestNileNet mailing list [email protected] http://orion.kym.net/mailman/listinfo/westnilenet WestNileNet is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. _______________________________________________
