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Multi-billion ICU equipment lies idle at Masaka hospital
Dr Diana Atwine (centre), the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health, inspects the Child and Maternity Complex under construction at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital in 2023. PHOTO | MALIK FAHAD JJINGO
What you need to know:
- The hospital management says they lack a facility to house the equipment.
A multi-billion Intensive Care Unit (ICU) equipment that government procured for Masaka Regional Referral Hospital has remained idle three years after it was delivered.
The hospital management explained that they lack a facility to house the equipment.
This has forced patients to seek ICU services from either Kampala or Mbarara, both located more than 100kms away.
Mr Charles Tumushiime, the hospital principal administrator, said the medical equipment has remained idle because the building which is supposed to house the equipment has not yet been completed due to lack of funds.
“We are still keeping the equipment in the store until the building is completed. We still need an extra Shs2b, but the money is not forthcoming,” he told Daily Monitor on Monday.
Some of the equipment lying idle include more than 15 ICU beds, ET tubes, tracheotomy, Nasogastric tubes, tube monitors and kidney machine.
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, the Ministry of Health promised to establish five ICU facilities at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital to enable it manage patients in critical conditon.
The Ministry responded by delivering the equipment, which management has kept in the store to date.
Mr Tumushiime said although the facility receives patients who require ICU services, such cases are normally referred to Kiruddu hospital and Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala or Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital.
“We get road accident victims, those who require dialysis, and those who need neural surgeons, but because we lack an ICU, we have no option but to refer them to those hospitals that can handle such cases,” he added.
Records at Masaka Regional Referral Hospital indicate that the hospital receives at least five patients in a month who need ICU services.
Efforts to get a comment from the Ministry of Health were futile by press time.
Mr Swaibu Makumbi Sulambaya, the chairperson of Masaka Regional Referral Hospital Patients Association, said the Child and Maternity Complex, which is planned to house the ICU, was supposed to have been completed a long time ago.
The construction has dragged on for nearly a decade.
Once completed, the facility will also have two modern theatres, a gynecology unit, antenatal and neonatal centres, labour and post-natal wards. It will also have a pediatric and nutrition and adolescent health units, all fully equipped with modern equipment.
Ms Annete Namukwaya, an attendant to a patient at the facility, said: “When the equipment was delivered we thought it would soon be installed and put to good use, but it’s unfortunate that years down the road, they are still lying idle.”
