MOH warns against moving with cannulas outside hospital

Kampala, Uganda | URN | Officials in the Ministry of Health (MOH) have warned that people who move around with cannulas risk catching infections as such treatment options are only a reserve for patients admitted in hospitals.

Dr Charles Olaro, the Director General of Health Services in the ministry says they have previously issued circulars to hospitals warning them against the trend of dispensing intravenous treatment for outpatients, but the habit has persisted.

He says they later learnt that the approach was mostly abused at the height of COVID-19 pandemic when members of the public used it as a trick to escape movement restrictions but the same is now used to unnecessarily increase cost of care by unscrupulous healthcare providers.

He says people who can move with cannulas can as well respond well on oral treatments or other options that do not require intravenous therapy.

Olaro who was speaking as Uganda joined the rest of the world to mark the global Patient Safety Day, an annual initiative to raise awareness on patient issues held every 17th of September said the ministry is now planning an even bigger clean up exercise that will help sort some of the issues arising from having unchecked health providers and guarantee patient safety.

He said they plan to do a validation exercise for health workers, where they among other will require health workers to properly identify themselves at all times in a bid to eliminate quacks.

According to Dr Munanura Turyasiima, Principal Medical Officer in charge of Standards, Compliance and Patient Protection patients are harmed at every point right from the care they receive as outpatients when they go back to the community or within the health facilities themselves.

He shares statistics that one in ten patients are harmed while receiving care and that it takes vigilance for one to minimize the risk of harm.

Globally, this year, the attention for the Patient Safety Day has been put on safe care for Non – Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and Dr Charles Oyoo Akiya the Commissioner of Health Services for NCD Prevention and Control says that people suffering from chronic and dilapidating illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer are high at risk of unsafe practices because they often end up in the hands of quacks in a desperate search for varied treatment options.