Kampala — DIABETES and hypertension patients on Tuesday stormed the Gulu district chairman's office, complaining that last week, Gulu Hospital pharmacy has been closed and they have not received any treatment.

They said due to lack of treatment, many of them had become weaker and developed complications. The elderly patients pitched camp at Norbert Mao's office, forcing the LC5 vice-chairman, McMot Kitara, to abandon a workshop he was attending to address them.

They complained that the Government focused on the HIV/AIDS patients and ignored them. The secretary of the Gulu Diabetes Association, Aida Okot, said: "Diabetes is not like other diseases. One week is enough for us to die. Already some of us are bed-ridden due to lack of drugs."

The patients said Alice Lamwaka, a suspended pharmacist, was the one who used to give them drugs, adding that she had scheduled them according to the seriousness of their conditions.

"We should be told where Lamwaka is because she has all our files," Okot said. This prompted a meeting called by Kitara at the office of the district chairman, which was attended by Gulu Hospital medical superintendent Dr. Yoventino Agel Akii, district director of health services Dr. Paul Onek Awil, chief administrative officer Abdallah Kiganda and secretary for community development Santa Oketta.

At the meeting, Kitara said: "Those who are supposed to get drugs today should be given treatment so that their conditions don't worsen." Akii said two of the people who dispensed the drugs were untrained, adding that one was recruited as a cook and the other a cleaner.

"They were suspended to re-organise the pharmacy," he added.