Death of expectant mother impels graduates to construct hospital in Namutumba 

In 2013, residents in Bulanga village, Namutumba Town council, in Namutumba District were filled with grief, when an expectant mother died during labour.
The youthful mother’s life could have been saved if she had been operated on in time but because of the long distance to either Mbale regional referral hospital or Iganga hospital, she died on the way while being rushed to receive specialised attention.

Although the mother’s demise was a double tragedy as both the mother and baby’s lives were lost, it however, impelled four undergraduate youths, who were at the time doing their internship in various fields in the area to start a health facility to save such lives. The four were pursuing bachelor’s degree in Business administration from Makerere University.

Mr Dennis Kasacha says although they were not pursuing courses in medical area, the nasty experience they got was enough to prompt them to come up with an idea of starting Namutumba community hospital.
The facility is located along the Iganga-Mbale highway in Namutumba Town council.

Like the name of the health facility suggests, Mr Kasacha, who is now the administrator of the hospital says it was meant to save the lives of people in the community.
“Besides, deaths arising from maternal related cases and illnesses, there was need for a health facility along the highway that could provide quick attention to accident victims who on many occasions died due to over-bleeding,” Mr Kasacha says.

“For many pregnancies facing complications, delivering at home or without the help of a skilled health worker can have devastating consequences. Because we have brought the services nearer to the people, many mothers with complicated pregnancies are able to get medical attention in time,” Mr Kasacha says.

Despite its humble beginning, the facility now boasts of 30 beds for in-patients, a theatre, laboratory, scan and antenatal services.
On average, Mr Kasacha says the facility attends to about 50 outpatients daily.
He says that the cost for their services are subsidized as they have foreign friends who make donations to the facility.
“We have to a certain extent reduced the cases of maternal deaths in the area,” he says.

Ms Margaret Ssegonga, the assistant district health officer for the Namutumba says with a population of 218,900 people, the district has Nsinze health centre IV in Nsinze sub-county as the biggest health facility.
“The health unit is supplementing the services offered by government health facilities and for them they are able to handle more complicated cases,” Ms Ssegonga says.
She says they sometimes refer complicated cases to the facility.
But Mr Kasacha says despite the big strides they have made, ignorance among the populace is still a big problem.

He says that there are still some patients who first seek medical attention from drug shops and none professional personnel in the villages and when they realize they have failed to treat them they refer them to them.
This, he says, this sometimes complicate their work and have embarked on sensitising the public on the need to seek medical care from qualified personnel.