Govt should do more to improve health facilities

The state of the health sector in Uganda continues raise concern. This newspaper reported last Friday that only 50 per cent of Ugandans seek treatment from government facilities as the first option.

The current population of Uganda is 45,727,832 as 2019, based on the latest UN estimates.

A Sauti za Wananchi survey by Twaweza, a non-governmental organisation, has revealed that the number of Ugandans who go to government facilities has remained stable since 2017, while the number who first seek assistance from private facility has risen slightly.

Analysis of the numbers is even more intriguing. For instance, the report says citizens in rural areas (53 per cent), poorer citizens (50-60 per cent), and those with lower levels of education (57 per cent) are more likely to use government facilities compared to half of the population.
So what do these revelations say about the country’s health system?

In our view, this is a pertinent question, which should take officials at the Ministry of Health in particular and government in general back to the drawing board to find out the cause(s), with a view to charting a way forward.

Fortunately for the government, it does not have to scratch so deep in trying to discover the cause(s) as why many patients tend to shun public health facilities.

For a long time now, patients and those who take charge of them, have raised their voices hoarse over medicines and supplies’ stockouts in nearly all government health facilities. The lack of or inadequacy of the requisite drugs and equipment in public hospitals renders health workers helpless and patients hopeless.

As the research alluded, some patients will not find it very useful to visit a public health facility where all you will be served with are prescriptions, but not medicine.
The government should also adequately invest in the health workers if it is to reverse this trend.

Health professionals need motivation to keep them at their work stations. When patients visit hospital and do not find any health staff, or when the ones on duty simply drag their feet, they get frustrated and this drives them away.

How about the challenge of dirty government health facilities? The government should up its game and give all its hospitals and health centres countrywide a facelift. This critical as no patient with ability, among other issues, will want to visit a hospitals where they may end up contracting other diseases arising from the facilities’ filthy environment.

Therefore, government should urgently address these challenges if it is to win back patients to its hospitals.