Greater Luwero has been engulfed in a sombre mood after a dedicated medic, Dr. Emmanuel Mukunya succumbed to to Covid-19.
His death comes just days after Mukono Internation Medical Center lost its founding director, Dr. Isma Kizito to the deadly virus.
Luwero residents have described Dr Emmanuel Mukuny as a dedicated medic to whom saving life was a duty above everything else.
Dr Mukunya breathed his last on Monday, July 19 in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Mulago National Referral Hospital where he had been admitted battling Covid-19.
A dedicated medical officer with a record service of more than 25 years at Nakaseke Hospital, Dr Mukunya rose through the ranks from hospital medical superintendent to principal medical officer.
His colleagues describe him as a thorough man who moved around the corridors of Nakaseke Hospital as a surgeon and nurse in a dilapidated structure that had been brought down by the National Resistance Army (NRA) Bush War in the 1980s.
“At a personal level, Dr. Mukunya had an unmatched track record of service basing on his rise through the ranks and the expert knowledge he exhibited as a medical practitioner. His knowledge in community medicine possibly explains the humility under which he has been serving,” Dr. Mukuzi Muhereza, the general secretary of Uganda Medical Association, also the Nakaseke Hospital medical superintendent, says of the deceased.
Even when he was appointed acting Nakaseke District health officer, he held the post only for a short time and chose to return to Nakaseke Hospital to save lives as a medical practitioner.
At some time during the Bush War, Dr Mukunya had to crisscross the corridors of Nakaseke Hospital, answering to emergency calls as a general doctor, and at the same time the nurse since he was the only available doctor at the time.
“He departs Nakaseke at a time when we greatly needed his expert knowledge. Luckily, we are now more than six doctors at the facilities serving under conditions that have improved after the hospital was refurbishment by government and more staff recruited. We shall dearly miss Dr Mukunya,” Dr Muhereza says.
Ms Rose Namayanja Nsereko, the ruling NRM party deputy secretary-general, and former Nakaseke District Woman MP, eulogised Dr Mukunya as a man who went beyond his call of duty to impact on the lives of the people of Greater Luweero and Nakaseke District in particular.
“He is one medical practitioner who I came to know early in my life and surprisingly, even the people he did not directly treat came to realise that there was a servant of the people in Nakaseke Hospital and the other Greater Luweero Districts. People who serve with such exceptional character are rare. May his soul rest in eternal peace,” Ms Namayanja told local newspaper DailyMonitor in a telephone interview yesterday.
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