Ssegirinya’s Death Sparks Discussion on Brain Death

The death of Kawempe North MP Muhammad Ssegirinya on Thursday has sparked a discussion on brain death with experts clarifying that this concept might only have been used to offer false hope and to attract unnecessary cost
Dr Erasmus Okello an Intensives and Lecturer of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at Makerere University explains that damage to the brainstem, a small area in the brain that controls vital function of life, is irreversible and there is no chance that an individual will be brought back to life even as they might have their vital organs such as the heart or kidney function for a very short time

In a statement, Lubaga Hospital confirmed that the legislator had passed on at 12:10 PM. However, earlier, opposition politician Robert Kyagulanyi, the President of the National Unity Platform (NUP) which Ssegirinya had been subscribing took to his X (formerly Twitter) platform to announce that Segirinya was not entirely dead
He wrote that medics at Lubaga had informed them that Ssegirinya’s brain was dead and most of his organs had shut down but was not fully dead, a development that sprouted confusion among different sections of the public
But Okello says there might have been a communication accident explaining that doctors have specific ways of examining and confirming death by examining their eyes and respiratory function among others