Uganda’s Largest Hospital Said Lacking Medical Equipment

Text of report by Raymond Baguma entitled “Mulago seeks 430bn shillings” published by Ugandan newspaper The New Vision website on 2 November

Mulago Hospital needs 250m dollars (about 430bn shillings) to purchase medical equipment, the executive director, Dr Edward Ddumba, has said.

Officials from the ministries of health and finance, led by Prime Minister Prof Apollo Nsibambi, yesterday met at the hospital to discuss the constraints faced by the hospital. This financial year, the government allocated 10bn shillings to Mulago Hospital.

Dumba said a plan to renovate the dilapidated hospital had been drawn. He said the hospital needed to overhaul the X-ray unit, the electrical systems and the new mammogram machine for breast cancer screening.

“The radiotherapy machine is down. It is the only machine in the country because the one in Lacor Hospital in Gulu District [northern Uganda] is not functional. Most of the equipment at the hospital is very old and we also have problems of space,” Ddumba said.

“The labour ward is congested, with no delivery beds and mothers are lying on the floor. We need a maternity block, an ultra-modern private wing, and need to expand the cancer ward.”

There was overcrowding in the labour and the outpatients cancer wards, and a shortage of incubators for premature babies, he said.

“Our central sterilization unit has also broken down and we cannot sterilize equipment. We are using small units instead of doing it centrally, which is cheaper.”

Ddumba said health workers were leaving Uganda to work in Rwanda, Sudan and South Africa, where they get better remuneration. Nsibambi said President Yoweri Museveni had directed the Ministry of Health to provide surgical equipment at the hospital so patients do not need to go abroad.

“The government has not been funding Mulago adequately. The matter cannot stop immediately but we shall do it in phases,” he said.

“We have excellent doctors but we lack the necessary equipment and the ordinary person lacks the capacity to travel abroad for treatment. Every year, the government can buy the equipment.”

Originally published by The New Vision website, Kampala, in English 2 Nov 07.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Africa. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.