“Meet 4-year-old Gwokyala Hamidah, who arrived for the PDA surgery with her courageous grandmother. With no transport funds, her grandmother hitchhiked on a sugarcane truck from Kayunga to @JinjaRRH where the @HeartUganda team is conducting a free closed heart surgery camp this entire week. The surgery was successful, and Gwokyala is now recovering,” reads the message.
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As Ugandans are slowly but painfully coming to terms with the government side legislators’ sh100m cash bonanza, poor Ugandans down in the constituencies are grappling with inadequate (and in majority of cases unavailable) services, including medical and affordable mobility in search of life saving facilities, as in the case of Kayunga’s four-year-old heart patient Hamidah Gwokyala.
As if absence of a medical facility to handle her problem in her local area was not painful enough, Gwokyala’s aged grandmother, on being advised about presence of a free closed heart surgery camp organized by Uganda Heart Institute at Jinja Regional Referral Hospital fruitlessly grappled here and there to transport her grandchild to the camp for the God-given opportunity of a free surgery.
When nobody was willing to help, the old woman defied all odds and took to the street to wait for someone to offer them free transport, and this came in the form of a Madhvani Sugar Corporation sugar transportation truck which ferried them to Jinja.
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The God they prophesy was with them and, just as He (God) helped the Israelites cross the Red Sea with neither boats nor a ferry, Gwokyala underwent a successful Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) surgery and after the surgery, the grandmother was divided between rejoicing and lamenting, first for her grandchild’s salvaging operation, and secondly, for how she was to take her back home, fresh from the operation and in need of fairly good nutrition till total recovery.
Her story came to light after the admin of a social media page of Uganda Heart Institute published a tip of it backed up with some pictures on the institute’s page. By press time, the grandmother was currently thinking of how to go back home when the time for their discharge comes, but at least gratified that her grandchild had undergone a successful operation and was steadily recuperating.
“Meet 4-year-old Gwokyala Hamidah, who arrived for the PDA surgery with her courageous grandmother. With no transport funds, her grandmother hitchhiked on a sugarcane truck from Kayunga to @JinjaRRH where the @HeartUganda team is conducting a free closed heart surgery camp this entire week. The surgery was successful, and Gwokyala is now recovering,” reads the message.
Gwokyala’s story comes to light at a time when the Members of Parliament including the one representing her in Kayunga, recently bagged a token of sh100m. According to the old lady sh5,000 would have sufficed to see her and her grandchild travel to Jinja via public means.
According to the real life stories in different rural settings, Gwokyala’s is undoubtedly a case among thousands of similar others, with very many Ugandans rooted in life challenges on the verge of meeting their creator.
Do not ask me, for I have no clear cut answer, whether Gwokyalya’s political leaders will have the audacity and moral authority to approach her grandmother asking for her vote in order to be able to give her and poor Gwokyala ‘effective representation’ (sic) come 2026!