Health
President Museveni to foot Jinja jounalist’s medical bill
President Museveni has responded to an appeal by Busoga Journalists and concern citizens by promising to raise the Shs 110m required by their colleague, Brenda Gimbo to have a brain tumor
treatment in India, this month.
In a letter dated October 7, journalists in Busoga under their umbrella body Busoga Journalists Association [BUJA], chaired by Solomon Baleke petitioned the president seeking his intervention in
saving the life of their colleague.
Gimbo, 36, was in July diagnosed with a tumour on the brain After a successful minor surgery, neurologists at Mulago national referral hospital advised her to seek further treatment from Yashoda
hospital in Hyderabad, India within a time-frame of sixty days.
Her efforts to raise the money yielded only shillings 900,000 in the last two months. Realizing that the period within which she must be operated was running out, Gimbo appealed to her colleagues in the
media fraternity for help.
Members of BUJA together with forumists of Agafeno whatsapp group then organized a ‘Save Brenda Gimbo Crusade’ to fundraise the required Shs 110m. But after ten days, the campaign which was done both in electronic, print and social media had by October 6, raised only Shs
1.2m.
It was against this background that BUJA through the speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga addressed their plight to president Museveni appealing for help and the appeal was received by the president at the Independence Day celebrations in Luuka after which the Speaker confirmed that the president had accepted the request and promised to foot the medical bills of the journalist.