Amolatar health facility fails to operate five months after commissioning

More than 16,000 fishing communities of Nalubwoyo Sub-County in Amolatar District are facing challenges in accessing health services after the facility built to serve them failed to operate five months after its commissioning.

Nalubwoyo HCIII was built by the Uganda People’s Defense Forces-UPDF Engineering Brigade at a cost of Shs1.4 billion with funding from the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) and was commissioned on April 5, 2024 by the Minister of State for Northern Uganda, Dr Kenneth Omona Olesugun who officiated at the launch on behalf of the Prime Minister, Ms Robinah Nabbanja.

With new structures including the Out- Patient Department block (OPD), maternity ward, staff houses, medical waste and placenta incineration pit, two VIP pit latrines among others, the facility lacks drugs, staff, and health equipment to kick start its operation.

Its contract was initially awarded to Otada Construction Company in 2018, which failed to complete the work.

Since its establishment on May 31, 2021, Nalubwoyo Sub-county with 35 villages and 5 parishes with a total population of 16,400 people has never had any government health facility and patients would trek about 20 kilometers to Alyec-meda HCIII or Amolatar HCIV which is located about 15 kilometers away to seek health services.

With the construction of Nalubwoyo HCIII, locals were optimistic that services had been brought nearer to them but their hope seems to be dim.

Amolatar District Health Officer(DHO), Dr Jimmy Odongo, said the non-functionality of this facility is affecting service delivery to the locals since Nalubwoyo Sub-county is one of the areas submerged by the floods.

“We are facing challenges of fully effecting the functionality of this facility. Reason being we are lacking medical equipment, drugs, Primary Health Care(PHC) to run the facility and also wage for recruitment of staff,” Dr Odongo said.

“We wrote to the Ministries, permanent Secretaries of Health and Finance requesting for all these and one point where we have succeeded is having the facility coded,” he said.

Adding, “So we want to appeal to the Ministries so that in these budget consultative meetings, we prioritize having this facility captured in a bid for it to fully functionalize,".

Mr Geoffrey Ocen Kiring, the Amolatar LCV Chairman says ever since the commissioning of Nalubwoyo Health Center III, the process of accessing medicine and staffing are not complete.

“We have sent the structure to the Ministry of Public Service and we were told that by the end of this month, they will approve that structure. Secondly we have also written to the Ministry of Health for supplies of medicines and other necessary equipment,” he said.

“They haven’t promised a fast response but they said they will be considering Amolatar in the course of the financial year, so we will continue with making follow –ups and hopefully in the course of the financial year we may get feedback,” he added.

Mr Francis Odoki Rwotlonyo, the Amolatar Resident District Commissioner said the District leadership are in consultation with the Ministry of Health and the technical team from the District on how best they can work together in ensuring that the facility starts to function.

“We have many people visiting this facility in search of health services but they are not able to due to lack of human resource, drugs and health equipment," he said.

"However we are engaging the different partners to ensure that the health center starts its operation effective October,2024,” he added.

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