Regional cancer institute to offer free treatment

The Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) has said the new regional cancer treatment centre in Gulu will not charge patients who seek treatment.

On April 12, the UCI board of directors and management conducted an appraisal visit of the centre to assess the progress of the construction works which is now at about 90 percent.

Prof William Bazeyo, the UCI board chairperson, said whereas Ugandans will not be required to pay for treatment services at the new centre, the Health ministry is formulating how treatment services can be issued to non-Ugandans at a moderate fee.

“We are not going to charge patients at the Gulu Cancer Centre. What we are doing now is to formulate a policy on how to manage non-Ugandans who will come to the centre for treatment, but for Ugandans, we are not charging them,” Prof Bazeyo said.

“I want to promise the community and people that we shall have the most trained health workers who will be serving patients at this centre. Within the next three months, the facility, should be ready for commissioning,” he added.

Meanwhile, during the visit, it was established that the facility which requires 60 personnel to run, has only 19.

Ms Hellen Akello, the facility’s human resources officer, said the new cancer treatment centre opened to the public with a low staffing level which has so far affected its performance.

“The institute has faced the challenge of staff because of the ban on recruitment by the government and also the lack of funding to pay the wages of the staff. The centre that should be managed by over 60 staff members is currently being run by only 19 staff members,” Ms Akello said.
 
Ms Akello added that a recent recruitment drive by the Uganda Cancer Institute could not attract candidates for the multiple slots they have.
 
Meanwhile, Dr Jackson Orem, the executive director of the Uganda Cancer Institute, said the manpower shortage resulted from a lack of information and awareness among the general community about the new treatment centre and its activities.

“We have a skeleton team of about 19 staff, and therefore, we need to have the number of staff boosted so that we can optimally perform,” Dr Orem said.

Dr Orem said they were discussing ways to offer better pay for its staff as a strategy to meet the targeted number of staff to run the centre. 

Meanwhile, Dr Orem added that the Uganda Cancer Institute has been allocated a budget of Shs200 million for human resource recruitment for the Gulu centre to beef up the number of staff who will oversee the operationalisation of the centre.   According to Dr Oryem, the centre is expected to handle the huge patient load that previously flocked the UCI at Mulago hospital in Kampala.

“If you look at the patient load that we have in Kampala now, 85 percent of the patients come from upcountry. That means only 15 percent are residents around Kampala,” he said, adding that the majority of those are patients battling cancer of the cervix and prostate cancer. 

Having completed construction of Phase One of the regional outlet, management was therefore forced to commence offering services to patients to not only offer partial relief to the UCI facility in Kampala but also offer redress to the patient load in Northern Uganda.

“We opened this centre and (discovered that) there are some patients who were diagnosed a long time ago but they are not attended to anywhere but now because the centre is here they are coming. That means the presence of a facility is a very important enabler of services and care,” Dr Oryem said.

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