11 December 2024
By Isaac Senabulya
A section of lawmakers has called for compulsory first aid training for both Police and motorists as a condition to obtain driving licenses in order to improve access to emergency health services and reduce the mortality occasioned by delayed access to such services in Uganda.
The call was made by Ruth Lematia (Maracha East) and backed by Samuel Opio (Kole North) MP during the Multi-Stakeholder Engagement on Advancing Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in Uganda organized by Twaweza Uganda, held at Gold Course Hotel in Kampala.
She said, “What I have learnt and felt is that our country has missed the Police. I have been to the United States and United Kingdom and their Police are taught first aid as part of training. Later I discovered that I think before independence, the Police were being told first aid.”
Lematia who comes from a lineage of Police officers narrated several incidences that her father held emergencies while growing up wondering why the current police officers don’t have the same skills noting, “I am a grand daughter and a daughter of a Police man from West Nile. I felt that my father was taught first aid, because each time there was a problem, my father would handle such a situation. Why don’t we teach our Police men first aid as part of their training because in most cases, they are the first people to come across accidents?”
Opio called for compulsory training of all motorists in first aid and safety training as is done in other nations as a precondition for motorists to qualify for driving licenses, saying this would equip them with knowledge on how to handle emergencies in case they encounter any in their communities.
“Safety training for our motorists and riders is really key. I have seen in some countries, it is a requirement before you get a license;you must have undergone safety training. And you even have to undergo first aid training, you first get the first aid license, then you qualify for a driving license. I think these are some of the areas we need to start thinking about as a country. Whether it comes in the regulations such that you must have this training,” he said.
Although Opio, who doubles as Vice Chairperson Parliament’s Health Committee commended Government for boosting ambulance access at constituency level to 54% saying this is higher than the case 4-5 years ago when Government had no ambulances at Constituency level, he said that these efforts are being hampered by the poor road infrastructure, citing a case in Amudat where the area ambulances were being forced to drive to Kenya in order to transport patients to Mbale Referral Hospital because the main road had been cut off.
“We were sometime in Amudat and we observed that the road has actually been cut off, so the emergency services couldn’t use the routes that they use routinely, because they had been cut off so this ambulance in Amudat had to first go to Kenya, then access Mbale Regional Referral Hospital because the main route that was there, wasn’t accessible. So it raises the issue of health roads, it isn’t enough to have ambulances to ensure availability, the road infrastructure must also be handled,” explained Opio
Marie Nanyanzi, Senior Program Officer at Twaweza East Africa, called on MPs to ensure that legislation on by-stander protection (Good Samaritan law) is enacted by Parliament saying many Ugandans are hesitant to help people in need or emergency care especially road crash victims due to the fear of being accused of causing the injuries and at times, they are forced to pay medical bills for the people whose lives they attempted to save.
While unveiling results of a Survey conducted in October 2021 by Twaweza and published in August 2023, Nanyanzi explained that very few citizens are aware of any toll free number to call in a medical emergency and those seeking assistance from health facilities in the case of emergency had to wait for an average of 43 minutes.
“There is need to develop legislation on the by-stander protection that is the Good Samaritan Law and the reason we have that in there is because we know that in some cases when somebody witnesses an accident, they don’t want to assist because they think, when you take that patient to the hospital, the first think they will tell them is that, you knocked this person, you pay the bills. So most people tend to shy away, they don’t want to help. But if at all we had a regulation that would protect that person that if offering this help, then maybe, more people would be able to assist,” said Nanyanzi.
“The average waiting time for those seeking help from health facilities in an emergency in the previous six months was 43 minutes. Two out of 10 were attended to within five minutes of arrival and a further 2 out of 10 were seen within 20 minutes. A significant number 12% were not attended
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