Health minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng said former speaker of parliament Jacob Oulanyah developed a lymphatic system depletion for which he had undergone a surgical procedure to remove his spleen after he was brutalized by security personnel during a riot while at Makerere University in the early 90s.
Aceng revealed this in her report presented to parliament on Tuesday, arising from the postmortem conducted after Oulanyah’s death. In her summary report, Aceng said the former speaker died of cancer and multiple organ failure but also noted that the removal of Oulanyah’s spleen compounded by other contributory conditions led to his death.
“The Rt. Hon. speaker lost his spleen while he was in Makerere, he had a splenectomy following that riot. So he did not have a spleen which is also an organ which manufactures blood cells – white, red, and so on. He also had challenges with stem cells which had a poor immune response because of chemotherapy. He started having gastrointestinal bleeding or bleeding into the abdomen because of lack of platelets. He had multi-drug resistance bacteria which is usually hospital-acquired when you stay in a hospital for too long,” Aceng added.
Besides loss of the spleen, Dr Aceng said the conditions that contributed to Oulanyah’s death include; gastrointestinal bleeding that later caused multi-drug resistance bacteria because of prolonged stay in the hospital, leading to Oulanyah’s painful death.
The spleen, helps fight infection and filters unneeded material, such as old or damaged blood cells, from the blood. It is usually removed when it’s ruptured, a situation caused by an abdominal injury. But, medical research shows that its removal often results in serious or life-threatening infections.
Dr Aceng told parliament that Oulanyah started ailing in 2019 when he discovered a big swelling in the neck for which he subsequently sought medical attention in Germany. Upon removing the swelling, diagnosis confirmed Oulanyah had cancer.
Oulanyah started treatment at the Uganda Cancer Institute in Mulago and visited several other hospitals outside Uganda in pursuit of better healthcare. He then battled the disease silently until January 23, 2022, when his condition worsened and was admitted at Mulago national referral hospital and later taken to Seattle to access a gene therapy treatment, known as the CAR T-Cell.
In Seattle where he sought specialized health care, the hospital recalled the bio-tissues from the various hospitals for further analysis, But Oulanyah’s organs collapsed before the process could be completed -Aceng stated.
“The immediate cause of death was multiple organ failure – the heart failed, the lung failed, the liver failed and the kidney failed. The liver started failing while he was still here in Uganda as well as the lungs that had started collecting fluid. The heart started failing while in Seattle as well as the kidney. He had multiple bacterial infection, the viral infection that were discovered in Seattle,” said Aceng.
Oulanyah will on Wednesday be accorded a state funeral at Kololo Independence Grounds and thereafter, his body will be airlifted to Lalogi in Omoro District where he will be buried on Friday.