Months after the Ugandan public overwhelmingly stormed Panamera bar to fundraise for ‘public sweetheart’ Carol Atuhirwe for her cancer treatment, no answers are forthcoming over the state of health after she was flown to India in May last year.
Being a soccer fan, an arsenal fanatic to be precise, I couldn’t miss to watch Wenger’s boys battling Manchester City FC last evening.
I left office and drove to the nearest joint, City Ville in Bukoto.
A tough game it was and Arsenal was 2 goals down in the first half. During that break I realised one of the fans was receiving incessant calls and perturbed.
While he was off the phone he joined his clique and it is at this point that I eavesdropped on a conversation he had with his friends.
“You know we are soliciting funds to fly my little brother to India. He has brain cancer (tumour),” he said.
Some of his friends didn’t seem surprised meaning they knew to me the statement was heartbreaking.
As they kept chatting, Carol’s story emerged.
“By the way where is this girl who was taken to India last year?” a friend asked.
“Do you remember the car wash we went to at Panamera?”
Indeed I also asked myself, “where is she, is she back, did she heal.”
I remembered I had her contact and probably I should reach her through Whatsapp because we used to chat while she was still in Uganda.
Scrolling through my phone I had lost her contact.
I called her relative who asked me whether I need to publish the information she would give me.
I told her yes!
“She then availed me with Carol’s contact she uses in India.
“Talk to her yourself because she no longer replies to our messages neither picks calls,” the relative said.
Adding that Carol is in India with her mum but not much is known about her health status.
The last time Carol posted on her social media page Facebook it was last year in June when she said operation had been successful and she was waiting for one more to be able to return home.
When we contacted Kyamutetera Muhereza, the organiser of Panamera event in which millions were raised he couldn’t respond to calls and Whatsapp messages even when he saw them.
Some reports suggested that Carol was returning home last year in September.
She needed shs 270m to facilitate her treatment which Ugandans raised through various platforms.