Aga Khan University opens Speciality Centre in Kampala

The Aga Khan University Hospital will tomorrow officially open its Specialty Centre in Nakawa, Kampala, to offer super-specialised services for which Ugandan patients have required referrals abroad.

The Outpatients Speciality Services centre will, among others, provide Electromyography tests which information on John Hopkins Medicine organisation website shows “measures muscle response or electrical activity in response to a nerve’s stimulation of the muscle”.

The purpose: detect neuromuscular abnormalities.
Ms Diana Namubiru, the senior manager country operations and business development at Aga Khan University Hospital, said Nakawa Speciality Centre will provide chemotherapy, dialysis, diagnostic imaging such as Computed Tomography (CT) scans and gynecology and obstetrics.

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Huge population choking Kampala hospitals

The other services include endoscopy, colonoscopy, hemodialysis and nephrology services alongside access to medical specialists in diverse fields.
The high-end services at the Centre are a harbinger of world-class services to be provided by the combined Aga Khan University campus, a teaching hospital and students’ residences under construction in Nakawa, a Kampala suburb.
Once completed, the institution will provide modern facilities for top-end training of health and other professionals and super specialised curative care, with direct dividends for local communities, Uganda and the broader East African region.

The training fields for high-quality doctors and resulting patients’ services will include internal medicine, surgery, paediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology. The university will also train nurses, midwives and allied health professionals
During a guided media tour of the Outpatient Specialty Services at the Nakawa Specialty Centre on Wednesday, Ms Namubiru said she was receiving numerous telephone calls from Ugandan medical specialists working abroad who are excited to return home and serve with them.

“We are bringing back the specialists. I receive phone calls daily from Ugandans living outside the country. They are committed to returning as long as the service is in the country,” she said.
Ms Namubiru added: “Nakawa Specialty Centre will be reducing the number of referrals. What they look for abroad is what we have here now.”

She said they plan to hire Ugandan or Uganda-bred doctors presently working outside the country to add to existing expertise to guarantee the best quality of care in Uganda using the most modern diagnostic and curative care equipment.
According to Ms Namubiru, the Aga Khan University Kampala Campus and its teaching hospital will reduce the need for Ugandans to travel abroad for specialised treatment, savings costs for patients and families while improving the chances of patients’ survival due to timely diagnostics and treatment.
The Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi, Kenya, and other medical facilities in India, Turkey and the United States are choice destinations for Ugandans who can afford, to seek super-specialised care.

Majority conditions for patients’ referrals abroad include cancer, heart diseases, brain tumors and the nervous system-related complications.
The Aga Khan University and the Aga Khan Health Services operate five hospitals and more than 100 clinics that care for 2 million-plus patients annually in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

The Kampala project is one of AKU’s largest investments in East Africa to-date.
It will enable a significant expansion of the university’s existing School of Nursing and Midwifery in Kampala and will allow the university to begin training medical specialists in various fields.