Engineer Winnie Byanyima the UNAIDS executive director has accused the government of Uganda of restricting medical care to her husband currently serving a jail sentence.
Reports emerged late Tuesday that Dr Kizza Besigye’s health condition had significantly deteriorated and that had been rushed to a clinic for urgent attention.
“Last night, after a sharp deterioration in his condition, he was rushed to the clinic of his personal doctor, where he was treated and then returned to prison late at night,”Byanyima said later on Wednesday.
Byanyima revealed that the prison authorities did not inform her of Dr Besigye’s worsening condition.
“I learned of it through other means and rushed to the clinic myself during the night. When I saw him, Dr Besigye was extremely weak, shaking, running a high temperature, and suffering from severe abdominal pain, ” Byanyima said.
She added, “At the clinic, Dr Besigye was guarded by six prison officers and a plainclothes military intelligence officer, a woman who concealed her face with a large white shawl.”
“When he was discharged, Dr Besigye was marched to a basement car park and bundled into a prison pickup truck, squashed between two warders. When I approached the military officer to ask for her identity, she ran away. I managed to take a photograph of her as she fled,”the frustrated Byanyima explained.
The UNAIDS boss expressed deep frustration saying, “I am deeply concerned that Dr Besigye is now effectively in the hands of the army, rather than under civilian prison authority, and that his medical care is being deliberately restricted.”
“I have been kept in the dark about his condition, warned not to inform the public about his illness, and threatened that if I did so, he would be denied further access to his doctor’s clinic. I regard this as blackmail and as a deliberate attempt to deny him medical care and conceal his condition from public knowledge, she noted.
Byanyima had demanded for the immediate release of Dr Kizza Besigye, so that his family and doctors can care for him properly.
She said her husband is innocent, “and these dirty political games must stop. His continued detention, mistreatment, and denial of medical care place his life at grave risk, and those responsible will be held accountable.”
