How Covid-19 scourge hurt mental healthcare
Monday February 01 2021
An ambulance transports a patient into Butabika Hospital in June 2020. Many mental health patients were not able to access treatment during the lockdown. PHOTO/FILE
Advertisement
When Uganda’s healthcare facilities began experiencing a surge in Covid-19 cases in June 2020, mental health units at most regional referral hospitals were converted into Covid Treatment Units (CTUs).
“We resorted to the mental health unit because of the nature of how it had been constructed. It could easily be zoned. Sooner or later, we realised we had run into trouble with mental patients. We did not have where to put them. We tried putting them in other ordinary wards but the other patients were complaining,” Dr Nathan Onyachi, the Masaka Regional Referral Hospital director, told Daily Monitor yesterday.