Alwyn Carl Garuga, the son of the late businessman Dr. James Musinguzi Garuga, has said that blaming government over the death of his father by his mother, Peace Kesiime Bagorogoza, during a memorial service was very wrong and that she should issue an apology to government and withdraw her false claims.
Alwyn Garuga reveals that, instead, Kesiime confined Dr. Garuga at his home in Mbuya for months after downgrading him to CORSU Hospital along Entebbe Road while he was battling advanced illnesses that can only be managed by doctors with specialist skills and with advanced medical equipment to stabilise and monitor the sick patient.
He asserts that the deceased should have been in a hospital rather than being kept at home despite having advanced ailments.
“First of all, it was not new. Remember, when my father died, they first tried to blame a certain politician that he was the one who somehow denied him a visa to the United Kingdom, which was not true. It was Kesiime who misrepresented him as a local farmer.” Alwyn says.
He adds that after Peace Kesiime learned that the Deputy Speaker and former Prime Minister had intervened and reapplied for his visa, then at the memorial service on August 7th, one year later, she changed the story and blamed government’s deplorable healthcare system in a way to blame government for Garuga’s death.
“You claim to be a medical doctor, yet you are not a specialist doctor and you bulldoze as next of kin. You take the man home for three months. You wanted government to come at home and evacuate the man from home?” Garuga noted.
He adds “If you are blaming government hospitals, did you take the man to a government hospital and they failed to treat him? So, if a man of means like Garuga with his sickness, you decide to take him home, who is to blame? How can you come and now start blaming government healthcare facilities?”
Alwyn argues that if Garuga had been taken to a government hospital, he might have survived through proper management of his haemoglobin levels and no government medical specialists would recommend carrying out an open-chest surgery and hip-replacement surgeries on a fresh diabetic patient without first stabilising his blood sugar levels.
He suggests that Bagorogoza’s actions were intended to allow Garuga to die at home by misrepresenting his professional status.
“When he developed cancer, Garuga sent his paperwork to his doctors in the UK and the doctors were like, ‘You come to UK very fast. This is a new cancer. It is brand new.’ Upon that, Kesiime downloaded him to CORSU Hospital.”
“She downgraded Garuga to CORSU around the end of March. He was there for like a month. Remember, CORSU has no facilities to maintain diabetes, no facilities to maintain cancer.”
The allegation was that he was downgraded there for bone treatment. But remember, the man had diabetes and now cancer after they compromised his immunity with both hip-replacement surgery so around March, Bagorogoza takes Garuga to Mbuya and confines him at home in Mbuya”.
While at home, food began moving from Garuga’s stomach to his lungs while he was under Kesiime’s care at home.
He noted that the unnecessary open-chest surgery performed while he was recovering contributed to his death.
He also criticised his brother Johnny Musinguzi for deflecting from the unfortunate events that led to his father’s death and instead using the pulpit to blame government for human rights violations, as if his father’s right to medical treatment were not rights.
“By the way, my father gave Philip that 25,000 pounds to do travel bookings for the UK and Philip, you see and Peace ate the money. They didn’t do a single booking.” He claims.
He maintains that there is no evidence that Bagorogoza intended to use the Turkish Embassy for Garuga’s medical evacuation despite having obtained a UK visa.
She instead used his passport situation to facilitate her own travel to Turkey with five other people.
“Instead, she evacuated herself with five other people three weeks after burying the man. So, for five months, when the man was ill, she could not evacuate him to Turkey, but she desired to tie up his passport at a Turkish embassy. Even by the time the man died, he didn’t have a Turkish visa in his passport.”
“That application to Turkey was for her and her children, Philip, Johnny, Rowena and she actually went to Turkey three weeks later. That’s why she went to church and said she would not be alive if she had not been to Turkey for specialist treatment.”
“She went to Turkey for specialist treatment after ensuring the husband was dead. That’s a fact. And for three months, she tied the man up at home.”
Alwyn Carl Garuga characterises Bagorogoza’s actions as criminal because she denied his father necessary medical treatment by keeping him confined at home.
