Grapevine

Kadaga wants regional hospitals empowered to offer specialized services

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.