FLASH BACK:How Prof. Mbonye Got It All Wrong The Aceng , Atwine - Led Health Sector

 When his bid to become the substantive director general of health services (DG) failed in late 2017, fallen Uganda health scholar Prof Anthony K Mbonye imploded.

He got so angry that he went to Court after the IGG blocked his bid after he was accused of trying to unduly influence the recruitment process.

And when all this didn't yield, Prof Mbonye (who subsequently passed on in July 2021) got so frustrated and wrote a book in 2018. In his 156 page book, Mbonye criticised and contradicted President Museveni for allegedly trivialising the health sector leadership by appointing people he described as too conflicted, alien, young and inexperienced for the task at hand.

 Specifically, he criticised the President for making Dr. Asuman Lukwago the permanent secretary, Dr. Diana Atwine the pioneer director for State House Health Monitoring Unit, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng the DG and Dr. Christine Ondoa the Minister of Health replacing Dr. Stephen Malinga in 2011. Mbonye was also critical of the President and the MoH leadership for favoring and treating the leadership at the National Medical Stores (NMS) with kidsgrove.

In his book, in which he ranted and complained against many other things and people including then state Minister Sarah Opendi, Mbonye belligerently predicted total collapse of the health sector under the leadership of both Aceng and Atwine. For unknown reason, he seemed to have had a lot of contempt for these two blue-eyed girls of the President.

 In his book, Mbonye (clearly bitter that they didn't support his bid to become the Director General of Health Services after the President had elevated Aceng to the position of Minister in 2016) went as far as complaining about the two ladies' decision to be Born Again Christians and their practice of always praying a lot both at home and the work place.

 In the book chapters, which depict a Professor determined to keep whining about his personal grievances against a lot of people including childhood and high school buddies, Mbonye criticised the duo's spiritual devotion as hypocrisy aimed at strengthening their relationship with Gen Museveni's First Family epitomised by a deeply spiritual First Lady by the names of Janet Kataha Museveni.

PROVING HIM WRONG:

But today, roughly 8 years later, there are inescapable indicators that Prof Mbonye was wrong in criticising the President's recruitment decisions at the MoH because much of the doom and the chaos he predicted hasn't come to pass. And will never.

Instead, the two leaders namely Aceng and Atwine have demonstrated resilience and effective focused leadership clearly demonstrating how Mbonye's skepticism was utopian, wild and misplaced. Aceng has been Minister for almost 8 years and Atwine PS for the same length of time.

They haven't humiliated nor embarrassed the Born Again faith and the First Family as Mbonye had predicted. Under their leadership, the MoH (and Uganda as a country) has been able to circumvent several public health emergencies: the most glaring ones being COVID19 (of 2020-2021), and more recently Ebola.

 These were contained and the effectiveness with which the two ladies led the sector and coordinated Uganda's highly successful response, to especially the COVID pandemic, has since won for our country the admiration and respect of the international community.

Consequently, many countries and multilateral organisations, like WHO and other UN agencies, have had to sponsor missions of scientists and public health managers from across the globe to come and benchmark on Uganda's success story.

 The beautiful outcomes Uganda derived from it's COVID and Ebola response have caused our dear President, Gen YK Museveni, to win reputable awards of recognition as the world reflects on the effective leadership the ladies at the health ministry enabled him to render during that unprecedentably difficult period of COVID19. Being the sector Minister, Aceng has personally scooped several national and international accolades in recognition of the prudence, resolve and resilience with which she led the sector especially during COVID.

She was composed, articulately outspoken in defense of Ugandans' collective interest and never panicked even as COVID wrecked havoc, and in the process costing millions of lives, across the developed world.

Internet information on Wikipedia shows that, as a result, Dr. Aceng won more respect and admiration of fellow Ministers of Health across the continent and elsewhere in the developing world, some of whom have lately been urging her mentor the President of Uganda to consider fronting and sponsoring her to be elected for the Congo Brazzaville-based powerful office of WHO Africa Regional Director, which is currently vacant and is to be filled up this coming year 2025.

It's filled through elections by the very Ministers of Health from the 54 African countries under the auspices of AU. Naturally, this level of legitimacy and acceptability among peers is something Prof Mbonye must not have envisaged in 2018 as he published his very belligerent publication. 

So controversial and inaccurate were several contents of the book that some of the people the fallen Professor belligerently wrote about ended up dragging him to civil Courts for defamation.

PROGRESS ELSEWHERE: 

Yet beyond the impressive COVID and Ebola response record, there are several other irrefutable illustrations to show that the President didn't goof that much in posting Atwine and Aceng at the Wandegeya-based Ministry. 

This online news platform has reviewed several GoU and development partner literature and reports which clearly indicate that Uganda's performance has improved on almost all key health services delivery indicators in the last 8 years of Aceng's political leadership of the sector. One of these is the Uganda Demographic & Health Survey (UDHS) report which is done annually.

The UDHS illustrates the quality of health services citizens of a country recieve, their satisfaction levels, feedback and key intervention outcomes. The UDHS is conducted by UBOS in close collaboration with the MoH, GoU, UNICEF, UNHCR, UNFPA and World Bank.

 A review of the UDHS reports for all these years, since Aceng became Minister of Health and Atwine the PS, clearly indicate how all the performance and outcomes indicators have been improving without retrogression for the last 8 years counting from 2016.

 These indicators illustrate progress Uganda's health sector has registered on key indicators like maternal mortality, infant & child mortality. Other greatly improved areas include citizens' access to information on health care services, antenatal care, postnatal care, children's immunisation, management of childhood diseases, nutritional status of mothers and children; citizens' level of knowledge or awareness about HIV/AIDS and households' access to affordable safe drinking water.

The Aceng/Atwine-led health sector has done equally well on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)-related indicators that are concerned with health services provision.

This is illustrated by the fact that Uganda today has fewer below 5 years children who are stunted (20% compared to 2015's 31%); fewer children under the same age are malnourished, getting wasted or even overweight than was the case 8 years ago.

The other SDG-related indicators on which the Aceng/Atwine-led health sector has done exceptionally well include maternal mortality being demonstrably diminished. Others relate to the fact that more mothers are choosing to deliver their babies under the care of skilled health personnel as opposed to relying on Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs).

The under 5 years mortality rates are significantly down too as is the case with neonatal mortality rates, available well corroborated literature shows. On the reproductive health front, more women falling within the reproductive age (15-49 years) are desiring and having their access to safe family planning methods' needs promptly met whenever required than was the case 8 years ago. Larger numbers of children under 5 years are getting vaccinated promptly in compliance with all vaccination requirements as stipulated under the National Vaccination Programme of the country and WHO.

This has greatly impacted the country's life expectancy and quality of life for its citizens. Yet that isn't all. The last 8 years (counting from 2016) have seen more and more citizens becoming aware of and adapting hygienic practices like the effective washing of hands using both soap and water.

Courtesy of increased awareness and decentralisation of access, more Ugandan parents are embracing registration of their children's births (before the 5th BD) with the mandated civil authorities like NIRA than was the case 8 years ago. 

Available literature indicates that almost 50% of such births are currently getting registered in urban areas compared to 8 years ago (before 2016) when it stood at mere 32%.