The Minister of Health, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, addresses the media during the 30th annual health sub-programme joint review mission on Wednesday. PHOTO | ISAAC KASAMANI
Complications experienced by newborn babies, pneumonia, malaria, preterm birth and anaemia have been listed as the five leading causes of death in Uganda’s health facilities.
Information in the new health sub-programme performance report for the 2023/2024 financial year (FY) indicates that besides the above five, hypertension, septicemia (blood poisoning by germs), motorcycle accidents and tuberculosis (TB) also make part of the top 10 killers of people in the country.
“Neonatal conditions (failure to breathe, cold, cough, fever and vomiting) have remained the leading cause of health facility deaths among all ages accounting for 9.4 percent this financial year compared to 10.3 percent in the FY2022/2023,” the report reads.
The report added that there were 4,208 deaths due to neonatal conditions, 3,698 deaths due to pneumonia, and 2,917 deaths due to malaria reported by health facilities. However, there is limited reporting, especially by private health facilities and this can affect the accuracy of the data, according to details from the Health ministry.
Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, the Health minister, while commenting on the report, said the government is increasing efforts to address high death rates of newborn babies and in the general population.
“There has been a lot about the increased neonatal mortality and it has been stagnant as per the Demographic Health Survey. We know what needs to be done and I think there is a lot that is being done to ensure we reduce neonatal mortality,” she said.
“I have seen the effort that has been put in to ensure every regional referral hospital and district has a neonatal and intensive care unit (NICU) and also intensify health education on attendance to antenatal care,” she added.
Dr Paul Onzubo, the Maracha District health officer (DHO) who doubles as the deputy national chairperson for Association of DHOs, told this publication that some of the deaths have been sustained by barriers that are beyond the health system’s control such as poor health-seeking behaviour.
“When you make detailed analyses of who is losing those babies –it is actually the death of babies in the womb, fresh deaths, and macerated deaths (which happen earlier before they reach the hospital),” he said.
He added: “The detailed analysis of that will show you that the deaths are due to malaria in pregnancy, other illnesses that cause fever in pregnancy (febrile illnesses), they are due to mothers travelling long distances to look for quality services.”
Dr Richard Mugahi, the commissioner for reproductive, maternal and child health, said although some of the newborn deaths are due to gaps in the equipping of facilities, some health workers lack critical skills to save the babies.
“We found what killed the newborns, those within 28 days, the number one killer is birth asphyxia, which is the failure of these newly born babies to breathe well,” Dr Mugahi said.
“It is telling us that every centre where there is delivery, we need gadgets that can resuscitate and we need to train health workers more into that package of helping babies to breathe. We have already started training our nurses how to handle the newborns,” he added.
According to the report, after neonatal conditions is pneumonia, which has caused 8.2 percent of the deaths in health facilities, followed by malaria (6.5 percent of deaths), premature baby (4.8 percent of deaths), anaemia (4.5 percent); and hypertension (2.8 percent).
“The number of malaria deaths reported have declined significantly by 31 percent from 4,245 deaths in FY2022/2023 to 2,917 deaths in FY2023/2024 making it the third cause of deaths,” the report reads.
“This may be attributed to early detection and improved case management as well as integrated community case management for children under five years,” it reads further.
It added:“There is urgent need to strengthen screening for non-communicable diseases up to community level with special focus on hypertension, increase community awareness on early seeking treatment, capacity building for health workers in management of hypertension and increasing supply of anti-hypertensives at all levels of care.”
Decline in hospital deaths
According to the new report, there was a nine percent decline in the death of admitted patients in the FY2023/2024 compared to the previous year, in health facilities countrywide.
Details in the report indicate that there were 48,315 deaths in health facilities, which is lower than the 53,222 reported in the previous financial year. This was also consistent decline from the 56,878 reported in the FY2021/2022 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the ministry, the deaths declined despite an increase in inpatient admissions by 5.7 percent, from 3,385,664 in the FY2022/23 to 3,579,106 in the FY2023/2024, which could indicate an improvement in the quality of care.
The report said:“ The General hospitals still registered the highest proportion of inpatient deaths having 33 percent of the total deaths, followed by the regional referral hospitals with 29 percent, and national referral hospitals 16 percent.”
LEADING CAUSES OF DEATH WITH NUMBER OF DEATHS
1. Neonatal (newborn) conditions (all): 4,208
2. Pneumonia: 3,698
3. Malaria: 2,917
4. Premature baby: 2,161
5. Anaemia: 2,020
6.Hypertension (old cases): 1,241
7.Septicemia: 983
8.Motorcycle accidents: 931
9. TB: 912
10. Diabetes mellitus (re-attendances): 904
11. Motor Vehicle accidents: 904
12. Stroke/cardiovascular accident: 849 Source: MOH report
