By Mulengera Reporter
Quoting what the Commissioner of Prisons Dr. Johnson Byabashaija had told him early Tuesday morning, Justice Minister Norbert Mao Tuesday afternoon told Parliament that no amount of medical intervention will improve Dr. Kizza Besigye’s state of health for as long as he doesn’t end his hunger strike. This started last Wednesday and Dr. KB has only been taking water without eating anything.
Mao said that Byabashaija confirmed to him that Dr. Besigye’s health had clearly deteriorated and that unfortunately, there is no amount of medical intervention that would reverse that deterioration for as long as the Retired Colonel continues not eating food.
At the instigation of Speaker Anita Among, Mao admitted that going on hunger strike was one of the acceptable and most effective forms of protest by those who feel they have unfairly been locked up. Mao also explained that during the Sunday evacuation to the Bugolobi facility, there is a lot his personal Doctors established about Dr. KB’s state of health but as the Justice Minister, he wasn’t at liberty to disclose details because of patient confidentiality concerns.
He went on to imply that without the hunger strike, KB’s state of health would be okay and also implied that the Retired Colonel’s current predicament of the rapidly growing frailty was self-inflicted. This prompted the Speaker, cheered on by majority MPs present, to require Mao to be sensitive to the ailing Retired Colonel by primarily addressing the injustice that warranted him to declare the hunger strike in the first place. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
