“The brand is called Dr. Piriton UG. Which has several social media handles: TikTok, Facebook, Instagram with a monetized YouTube channel and the main reasons for the existence of this social media presence is to address the public’s medical concerns, uncover common myths and address public health concerns by mainly answering the public’s questions concerning medical dilemmas, offering common guidance concerning medical issues and answering all medical questions,” says Dr. Piriton.
This is much-needed, especially in a country which has fewer than 10,000 doctors to a population of close to 50,000 million Ugandans. The situation is indeed dire. The African Centre for Global Health and Social Transformation (ACHEST) says that Uganda produces approximately 1,000 medical doctors annually from its accredited medical schools.
Additionally, Uganda’s doctor-patient and nurse-patient ratios stand at approximately 1:25,000 and 1:11,000, respectively — far below the recommended doctor-patient ratio of 1:1,000.
These alarming statistics make Dr. Piriton’s work essential. But just how professional is he?
“The Dr. Piriton brand is always managed and handled by a medical doctor called Dr. James Kyagulanyi, a medical graduate doctor from Makerere University College of Health Sciences, School of Medicine. He graduated after doing a Bachelors of Medicine and Bachelors of Surgery (MBCHB) at Makerere. So mainly the purposes of the social media handles or why the social media handles were created is basically to help the public and extend free services. It’s basically a free, non-payable service offered by the channels or the brand,” says the good doctor.
Adding, “Because the brand provides a much-required public service for free it has gained more followers because these activities would otherwise be paid for. Indeed, many clients and fans find my channels as channels of education where they’re educated by an expert medic and get the free consultation services that come with such education. They just have to load internet and get data and they will be able to understand their medical concerns. Dr. Piriton is your friendly General Practitioner that is here to help. He has passion for medicine and for the public.”