LIRA – The Lango Paramount Chief, Mr Yosam Odur Ebii, has said that many men in the region have become impotent because of excessive consumption of alcohol.
Mr Odur said the increasing incidences of domestic violence and divorce among married couples is as a result of men failing to perform their conjugal duties because of impotence caused by alcohol.
“My slogan is peace, health and reproduction, but how can you produce children when you have been made impotent by over drinking waragi? When your wives demand sex, you turn violent,” he said.
The paramount chief was last week commissioning Atipe Health Centre III in Acaba sub-county, Oyam district.
Mr Odur also appealed to his subjects who are married to go together with their husbands and wives to go and test for HIV, because so many people are losing their lives to HIV/Aids and leaving behind orphans who are suffering.
He appealed to the community to offer their land for development saying that if the community of Abala had not offered their land for the construction of Atipe HCIII there would not have been any development in the area.
He hailed the owners of Mountain Blue farm in Australia Mr Ridlen Bell and his wife Ms Mikele Bell for their donation of Shs 2.3 billion to World Vision Uganda which was used for construction of an Out Patient Department OPD, modern maternity, staff houses, renovations, fencing and installation of solar-powered pipe water and upgrading of Atipe HCII to HCIII.
He also asked government to ensure that there is enough drugs in health facilities so that people can get the services they want.
“It’s good that the district officials are talking of having posted more health workers to this facility, but if there are no drugs at the health facility they will not even be in position to do their work effectively,” Mr Odur noted.
Dr Charles Olaro, the Director of Clinical Services in the Ministry of Health who represented Minister Dr Jane Aceng at the function, said that government has prioritized the upgrading of all the health centre IIs to HCIII’s and in Oyam district, an additional 3 health centre IIs will be upgraded in the coming financial year.
The Chief Administrative Officer of Oyam, Ms Dorothy Ajwang, said the facility should not be a solution to preventable diseases. She encouraged the community to take their children to the facility for routine immunization.
“I am advising men not to keep on impregnating their wives all the time because of this beautiful maternity ward because the 2 midwives we have here will be overwhelmed by the number of mothers coming for antenatal and deliveries”. Ms Ajwang noted.
The District Health Officer, Dr Thomas Malinga said the health facility is overwhelmed by patients because about 1,000 people turn up at the outpatient department at Atipe HCIII per week and 2 deliveries per day.
He said that there are 44 government health facilities in the district, but 6 sub-counties do not have HCIII’s and 52% of deliveries is done at HCII’s yet HCII’s are only supposed to handle emergency deliveries.
