Kadaga tasks health ministry to empower regional hospitals

The First Deputy Prime Minister and minister for East African Community (EAC) Affairs, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, has tasked the Ministry of Health to empower regional referral hospitals to offer specialised medical services rather than having patients referred to Mulago National Hospital in Kampala.
Kadaga said the Ministry of Health should “aim to decongest Mulago Hospital from receiving cardiac, cancer, and fertility cases, among others.”
“The heart and cancer institutes, fertility hospitals are all in Kampala, How do you expect someone from Karamoja or Kasese to do dialysis because of the distances? Something should be done about this because the population has increased,” Kadaga said on Tuesday.
Kadaga, who was commissioning a Shs1 billion orthopedic ward at Jinja Regional Referral Hospital, said for good health service delivery, the Ministry of Helath must empower regional referral hospitals with modern infrastructures.
The director for clinical services at the Ministry of Health, Dr Charles Olara, who represented Permanent Secretary Dr Diana Atwine, said the new orthopedic ward has already attracted two orthopedic surgeons.
According to Dr Olara, Jinja Hospital is in a “better position to handle all emergency cases and health complications before they are referred to Mulago Hospital.”
He further noted that Jinja Hospital receives many referrals because health workers posted in Health Centre IIIs and IVs, including general hospitals, are not working, and have to be checked.
Jinja Regional Referral Hospital Director Dr Alfred Yayi said the ward will provide privacy to both patients and health workers, among other amenities.
He revealed that the building was constructed by UK-based Samuel Leeds, while a well-wisher he didn’t name offered 60 orthopedic beds that are being shipped into the country to be immediately installed in the facility.
Dr Yayi, however, said despite such developments and achievements the hospital has registered, it has failed to attract an anesthesiologist, after their only one left the country for greener pastures.  
Samuel Leeds, who was accompanied by over 20 members from the Samuel Leeds Foundation, said the building was an offer to Jinja Regional Referral Hospital where he was evacuated for treatment in 2022 after he and other tourists were involved in a road crash while visiting tourism sites in Jinja and Busoga Sub-region.
He pledged two additional floors to the building on condition that the Ministry of Health and the administration of Jinja Hospital administration equip the building with all the necessary equipment.