Mulago expands accident, emergency units amid high road crash cases
Doctors take a patient out of an ambulance at the hospital. Such services require upfront payment. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- "We have expanded that space from around 30 to over 60 beds capacity and increased the area for resuscitation from only six beds to 12 beds and the ambience is much better," Dr Byanyima said. "But of course, the work is overwhelming and sometimes still overflowing."
The Executive Director of Mulago Hospital, Dr Rosemary Byanyima, has said the bed capacity of the facility's accident and emergency unit has been doubled, to enable access to better care for the high number of patients handled. There have been reports that some accident patients were sleeping on the floor because of the limited number of beds in the unit.
"We have expanded that space from around 30 to over 60 beds capacity and increased the area for resuscitation from only six beds to 12 beds and the ambience is much better," Dr Byanyima said. "But of course, the work is overwhelming and sometimes still overflowing."
Dr Byanyima said this on Friday evening, December 6, during their end-of-year celebrations attended by hospital staff and other government officials.
During the celebrations, she highlighted some of the facility's achievements, including the four new kidney transplants performed this year, and surgical camps for knees and eyes, among others.
In September 2023, doctors at the Hospital reported a three-fold increase in patients who require emergency surgery as a result of accidents, linking it to the rise in road crashes.
“About five months ago, on average, in our causality theater, we would attend to about 10 to 12 patients per week, but as I speak now, we attend to a minimum of 30 patients a week, and sometimes it goes to close to 40. It is three-fold. I don’t know, there is madness out there, I don’t know what is happening,” Dr Michael Edgar Muhumuza, the head of neurosurgery at the facility, said then.
“This business of crisscrossing the roads, riding in opposite direction and not wearing helmets should go down. The numbers of [victims of road crashes ending up in the hospital] have gone up,” he added.
Dr Muhumuza also said children are some of the victims in these road accidents. According to the Police Annual Crime Report for 2022, a total of 650 children (395 males and 255 females) below the age of 18 died due to road crashes in the country. That year, there were about 20394 road crashes that killed a total of 3901 people.
Dr Charles Olaro, the Acting Director General of Health Services at the Ministry of Health, during the Friday celebrations, appreciated the staff at the facility and urged them to be more humane to patients and remain committed at work.
