Entebbe surgical hospital operates 300 children in five months. The Children’s Surgical Hospital in Entebbe municipality, the first of its kind in Uganda, has started bearing fruits less than five months since it opened.
The 72-bed hospital is located a few meters from the Special Forces Command-SFC Barracks in Lunyo village, Entebbe Municipality.
Built at a cost of 117 billion shillings, the hospital was built under a public-private partnership with the ministry of health to serve as a regional referral for pediatric surgery.
Giacomo Menaldo, the Country Manager at Entebbe Surgical Children’s Hospital, says the hospital is managed and funded by International NGO Emergency, MOH, and other donors.
The hospital has an annual budget of 60million US Dollars, close to 220 billion shillings, for its operations. MOH will fund 20 percent of this annual budget. MOH is also expected to fully take over the management of the hospital after ten years.
Menaldo says that the hospital has so far received 1,000 children since it opened on April 19. Of these, 300 children have undergone surgeries.
This is no means achievement because Uganda’s mortality rate for children under five is 49 for every 1,000 live births. Of which, 30 per cent of such deaths are due to a lack of adequate surgery.
The hospital carries out two to five surgeries daily.
He however says the hospital is still operating at half capacity because majority of the 275 Ugandan medics are undergoing training with the 40 expatriates.
Once it is commissioned by President Yoweri Museveni, the facility will conduct at least 8 to ten surgeries daily, with over 300 staff.
Luisa Napolitano, the hospital’s Executive Director says most of the surgeries have been for patients with birth defects such as anal rectal malformations and urological diseases.
Among the 300 beneficiaries is 2-year-old Raymond Lujja. Lujja battled with difficult urination for more than one year because he had a blocked urethra.
His mother, Esther Nalubwama, says she took Lujja to more than three health facilities in vain and spent over one million Shillings on tests, scans, and pain killers.
Nalubwama says while her son has undergone open surgery for free at the facility in Entebbe, she says she would have spent over shillings 20 million for air travel and lodging costs minus costs for surgery if Lujja had been flown for an operation in India.
Also in the same ward are Tickel Favour and Nelson Muweesi, aged 11 months and 8 years respectively.
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