The Minister of Health, Dr. Ruth Aceng, and the Minister of State for General Duties Henry Musasizi, Tuesday jointly appeared before Parliament’s Committee of National Economy in Kampala to brief them & seek for approval of the proposal to borrow $18.9m (UGX65,923,578,000) from the African Development Fund to finance the expansion and equipping of Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI).
According to Dr. Aceng, the project is part of the three East Africa’s Centres of Excellence for Skills and Tertiary Education in Biomedical Sciences in which Uganda was to lead in Oncology, while Tanzania and Kenya were to lead in Cardiology and mythology respectively.
Uganda’s project was hampered by effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, creating need for additional resources.
Musasizi, while justifying the need for additional resources, explained that the construction of the Centre was initially scheduled to take 24months, however, due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the contractors cash flow challenges, the implementation of the civil works activities delayed for 18months.
The civil works contract therefore stretched to over 42 months and prices of materials and labour subsequently increased.
He said: “The demand for cancer care is growing and this, coupled with inadequate infrastructure has incapacitated the Uganda Cancer Institute from providing effective service delivery to patients. The limited infrastructure at the Centre has resulted in congestion, more complications, more expensive alternatives, premature deaths and increased referrals abroad. Currently for example, the cumulative number of patients on the waiting list for nuclear medicines stands at over 500 adult patients. Expansion of treatment and care facilities is thus a priority for Government,” Musasizi remarked.
Train more oncologists
Dr. Aceng said the country is grappling with the challenge of enough doctors and called for training of more oncologists to fill the gap.
“The doctors are very few and overwhelmed with work. If you stepped inside Uganda Cancer Institute today, from the door way, corridors, even near the washrooms, there are patients. In other countries, they don’t work like that. You will have one doctor attending to 1 or 2 patients in a day, these ones see how many in a day! In huge numbers, anyone would get tired and not do exactly, what you would want to do. That is why we need to train as many (Oncologists) as possible, but also, we need to recruit them and also remunerate them better, Dr. Aceng stated.
Robert Migadde, Vice Chairperson, National Economy Committee wondered: “Are we going to see an end to people going to other nations if we approve this loan? Because we have patients going to Aga Khan Hospital, now that we have East Africa with Kenya, Rwanda, are we going to see different patients coming here for the different services?”
Peggy Wako (National Female Elderly Rep) weighed in saying: “We have so many cases of cancer and those who are able, you see them going out of the country for treatment, so if we have such machines and those cases can be handled here, that will be my interest.”
