Patients swarm hospitals as the doctors’ strike drags on.

As the doctors’ strike in Uganda continues, I was able to secure entrance to Kampala’s Kawempe National Referral Hospital.

In the half hour I was there, there was only one intern doctor on the ward and no specialist in sight.

“There are too many of you. “There aren’t many health workers,” a nurse tells a laboring mother who hobbles up to her for help.

“You must pray to the president in order for the physicians to be paid,” she continues.

The floor is patrolled by at least four uniformed security personnel. My fixer and I are asked what we want by one with a club.

We tell the truth and say we’ve come to see a doctor about a personal concern.

A health worker consented to let me in under the table to observe the impact of the senior and intern physicians’ strike, which has been going on for more than a month in protest of poor pay and working conditions.

About 30 individuals are splayed on mats beneath the stairwell on the outside of the medical building, surrounded by bags, buckets, and kitchenware. They are the patients’ attendants, and due to a lack of space inside, they must wait here. One of them takes us to her sister, a new mother who is about to be released from the hospital.

In normal conditions, Apio would have returned home on Wednesday after giving birth to her daughter. Within hours of giving delivery, she vacated her hospital bed to make room for the next woman. But it’s 4 p.m., and she’s still waiting for the postnatal ward’s paperwork to be completed.

The 28-year-old is standing in line with around 15 other new mothers, all of whom appear fatigued and impatient for the nurse to call their names.

Working here is difficult even on regular days, with a nationwide doctor-to-patient ratio of roughly 1:25,000. Even more so now, with fewer employees due to the strike.