00:00 and child reunited at last. Salome Aturinde says hospital staff
00:07 forcibly took her new baby away from her because of an unpaid bill. They've been
00:14 separated for three months. It took a court order to get her baby back.
00:21 It's the most happened yesterday. I thank God for finally I've gotten my baby.
00:30 Aturinde is suing the hospital where she gave birth. She claims they violated her rights
00:36 by withholding her baby. The hospital refutes her claim. It says she has a duty to pay her
00:43 bills and that she abandoned her child to their care. Cases of detaining patients over
00:51 unpaid medical bills are common in Uganda. It mostly affects young mothers. Some are
00:58 kept under guard or made to work at the hospital to pay off their debts. The practice continues
01:05 despite prior rulings against it. The courts have declared that private health
01:10 facilities are not detention facilities. And in Uganda detention facilities are gazetted
01:17 detention facilities. So if you detain anybody in any place that is not a gazetted detention
01:23 facility then you're holding them illegal. And so that means that even for the case of
01:29 health facilities, whether someone has failed to pay or has paid, you cannot detain them
01:36 within the facility. But these precedents have not resulted in
01:41 legislative change. Lawyers are hoping that this case can cause parliament to enact a
01:47 comprehensive law to help end the practice in Uganda. But for now Salome Aturinde is
01:54 joyful that her first born is back in her motherly embrace.
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