Political Bias Alleged as Woman Dies Amid Claims of Neglect at Kiboga Hospital
Journalist Mbabazi Faridah gives harrowing account of a patient’s final hours, alleging a doctor refused to act with urgency and that care was denied due to opposition party assistance.
KIBOGA – A woman has died at Kiboga Hospital under circumstances now mired in allegations of extreme medical neglect and political bias, according to a detailed eyewitness account by journalist Mbabazi Faridah.
Faridah, who was present in the hospital, posted a devastating narrative online describing a “level of neglect… so deep it will haunt me forever.” She alleges the patient, an accident victim, was failed at every point by a system “where lives are lost not because survival is impossible, but because help was cruelly denied.”
According to Faridah’s account, the victim was involved in an accident on Monday. Her family’s desperate calls to authorities and contacts within the ruling NRM party went unanswered. Assistance finally came from Musumba Lubambula, a local council official from the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP), who facilitated her transport to Kiboga Hospital.
Upon arrival, Faridah states the woman received only a drip. The journalist, who visited the hospital with her media team on Tuesday, found the patient coughing blood and showing signs of internal bleeding, yet receiving no monitoring or urgent care. “She was left alone in a room with her family, abandoned by the very system that is supposed to save lives,” Faridah wrote.
The situation escalated on Tuesday morning. After being told the hospital lacked capacity and receiving a transfer note for Hoima Hospital, the family faced a struggle to secure an ambulance, with alleged NRM contacts ignoring calls. When an ambulance finally arrived, Faridah claims no hospital staff assisted in moving the critically ill patient.
The most severe allegation concerns a doctor’s conduct as the woman’s condition rapidly deteriorated. Faridah recounts begging the doctor to attend to the patient in the ambulance. “His response was horrifying,” she wrote. “He said he wouldn’t rush, that he would ‘work at his own pace.’… he coldly told us he knew the patient and if she were going to die, he was not God.”
Faridah states the doctor, who was on a phone call, asked her profession. Upon learning she was a journalist, he allegedly said, “I am a doctor, I can’t run. Take your nonsense away; you are here looking for news.” He further justified his delay by saying he could not “attend to someone who was going to die, leaving a living patient there.”
By the time the doctor approached the ambulance, it was too late. Faridah states he offered no comfort or explanation to the family, only coldly informing them of the death. The family was left to transport the body without a postmortem report.
In her searing conclusion, Faridah directly linked the death to political prejudice and a refusal to act: “This woman did not die because survival was impossible. She died because the doctor refused to attend to her… She died because the first help she received came from a NUP member.”
The claims have sparked widespread public outrage online, raising urgent questions about patient neglect, medical ethics, and the alleged politicization of healthcare. Kiboga Hospital administration and the Ministry of Health have not yet issued a public statement regarding the specific allegations.
This article is based solely on the eyewitness account and allegations published by journalist Mbabazi Faridah. Efforts to get an official comment from Kiboga Hospital or the relevant health authorities are ongoing.
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