Mulago hospital impressive but...

The Mulago Specialised Hospital, Maternal and Neo-natal Centre commonly referred to as the women’s hospital, is in the final stages of completion and should soon be open to the public. The hospital, both inside and outside, is a sight to behold.
Pictures of the new wards, machines and beds have been circulated on various social media platforms with many people saying they are impressed by what they see. Indeed this development should be applauded.
A media tour of the hospital revealed that the unit has 420 bedrooms of which 50 are self-contained single rooms. The unit also has a Presidential Suite.

In terms of medical equipment, it has 11 theatres and 50 moveable beds with oxygen, vacuum and medical air points. The new hospital is taking security seriously and has fitted CCTV cameras in every facility as well as provided for access control system for the private rooms.
There has also been forward thinking in the construction as the unit has underground water tanks of 200,000-litre capacity for rain harvesting as well as solar water heating facilities.

The construction of this grand hospital was funded by the Islamic Development Bank and the Government of Uganda and should be commended for various reasons. First is the fact that the building works has gone according to schedule, is a kind of story Ugandans would want to hear about all other ongoing projects in different sectors.
Secondly, while there has been a decrease on the numbers of maternal mortality, it is still dire as 336 deaths per 100,000 live births is still high. Efforts such as the new unit, aimed to make this number smaller, should be encouraged. Third, the facilities that have been mentioned above would make an impression on citizens of any country.
However, there are still some worries. For instance, while the hospital remains a government facility, it will only be accessible by only those who can afford the specialised services to be offered here and the expertise, machinery and top-notch services to be availed to patients.

Therefore, it is important that government facilitates and stocks lower hospitals in order to give them the capacity to adequately attend to patients. Already, the Minister of Health, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, has cautioned that the hospital will not be accessible by anyone [patient] unless they have been referred. Granted.
But in many cases in the past, patients would throng Mulago National Referral Hospital mainly because they could not get adequate attention from the referring hospitals. So it is vital that health centres, district and regional hospitals are also well facilitated to treat patients so that they do not have reason to go all the way to Mulago.

Our commitment to you
We pledge:
• To be accurate and fair in all we do.
• To be respectful to all in our pursuit of the truth.
• To refuse to accept any compensation beyond that provided by Monitor Publications Ltd. for what we do in our news gathering and decision-making.
Further, we ask that we be informed whenever you feel that we have fallen short in our attempt to keep these commitments.
[email protected]