By Umaru Kashaka
The Clerk to Parliament, Adolf Mwesige, has said Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze will be flown to the United States of America for specialized treatment.
“We have finalized arrangements to airlift her to the US for treatment. She is our member, entitled (to special medical treatment) and she is sick,” Mwesige said on Sunday, June 12.
“And the consultants have recommended that she should go to the US for treatment and as you know we have been taking many leaders abroad,” he stressed.
Asked when Nambooze would be flown, Mwesige said: “Well, that is for the family to decide, but for us we have finalized arrangements. She will decide when she will leave the country but we are ready to airlift her to be treated.”
On June 8, the Speaker of Parliament, Anita Among, visited Nambooze at Rubaga Hospital in Kampala and met the doctors attending to her.
After yesterday’s State of Nation Address, we visited our sister Nambooze who is hospitalized at Rubaga Hospital. I also had an opportunity to meet the medical team taking care of her, led by Dr. Luyimbazi Julius,” she tweeted.
“We prayed with her and wished her a quick recovery. I also assured her of our support to ensure that she gets proper medical attention. I have asked the medical team to give us the necessary documentation to support the process,” Among said.
The Speaker said Parliament will do whatever it takes to support Nambooze’s recovery process. “ We pray for her and her family during this difficult moment,” she added.
Nambooze, the National Unity Platform (NUP) party member, was hospitalized after she reportedly fell down twice at home, making her condition worse.
She was first rushed to Bugolobi Medical Centre in Kampala where a CT scan was conducted to know the severity of her injuries.
On June 6, NUP President Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine and the party’s secretary general, David Lewis Rubongoya, also visited her and said she was unwell, but making good progress.
Undergoing surgery
In November 2017, Nambooze, 52, underwent surgery at Manipal Hospital in India after doctors there found that she had suffered spinal compression.
The doctors advised her not to sit for long lest she stress her spinal cord and suffer more problems. They told her she would not fully recover until two to three years after the surgery.
This was after being treated for more than a month at Bugolobi Medical Centre following an injury she sustained during the fracas in Parliament on September 27 when the then Igara West MP Raphael Magyezi (now local government minister) tabled the Bill which later saw the removal of age limits for presidential candidates in the Constitution.
