Parliament’s Health Committee Pushes for Elevation of Mbarara Hospital to National Referral Status

The Committee on Health has renewed calls for Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital to be elevated to a National Referral Hospital, in a bid to reduce the pressure Mulago Hospital.

Members of Parliament on the committee made the calls while receiving budget framework papers of regional referral hospitals for the financial year 2025/2026 on Monday, 13 January 2024.

Mbarara District Woman Representative, Hon. Margaret Ayebare said several regional referral hospitals refer their patients to Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital.

“I have seen patients from Kabale and Masaka coming to Mbarara. The hospital already has a catchment area of 12 districts plus highways, and patients from Rwanda and Tanzania. Elevating Mbarara Hospital will enable it to handle all the patients from different places,” said Ayebare.

Her call was reiterated by Hon. George Bhoka Didi (NRM, Obongi County) who alluded to the committee’s interaction with the Ministry of Health where the need to decongest Mulago as a national referral hospital was proposed.

“We need to strategically think about the establishment of national referral hospitals in the three greater regions of this country particularly in Mbarara, Mbale, Jinja and Gulu districts, to bring services closer to the people,” Dr. Bhoka Didi said.

Rushenyi County MP, Hon. Naome Kabasharira, observed that Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital has set up good medical facilities including dialysis equipment, however, they are being housed in old infrastructure.

“I request that Mbarara Hospital be given another chance in as far as funding is concerned because it is a referral of referrals. Masaka, Kabale and Fort Portal regional referral hospitals send patients to Mbarara Hospital, but its budget is not increasing,” Kabasharira added.

According to the Ag. Hospital Director, Dr. Deus Twesigye, the hospital lacks a regional equipment maintenance workshop, which has affected the usage and maintenance of key equipment like CT scans.

“There are high maintenance costs including service contracts for the four oxygen plants, and a CT scan that is not supposed to go off lest it gets spoilt. It came with a 250kv generator but the cost of running it is high,” Dr. Twesigye said.

The Director of Hoima Regional Referral Hospital, Dr. Ibrahim Bwaga called for an increase in the budget for financial 2025/2026 to cater for the construction of a maternal and child health complex valued at Shs33.6 billion.

“The inadequate financial allocations for infrastructure development and rehabilitation of the hospital have compromised space and led to more floor cases. We received Shs1.15 billion for the maternal and child health complex, but the contractor said it cannot even work on the substructure,” Dr. Bwaga said.

Key among the unfunded and underfunded priorities at the regional referral hospitals is limited resource allocation to cater for utilities like water and electricity, where Mbarara Hospital has arrears of Shs716.3 million, Hoima Hospital, Shs137.6 million and Jinja Hospital requires Shs3 billion to cover its utility costs.

Hon. Elisa Rutahigwa (NRM, Rukungiri Municipality) proposed that leakages in electricity at the hospitals should be addressed so as to lower the costs involved.
“This issue of high utility bills is cutting across. What is the problem? Most of the electricity you use is actually lost because of poor wiring and connection. There are technical people who can assess these hospitals and look for all the leakages and fix them,” said Rutahigwa.

The presentation of the budget framework papers from the regional referral hospitals is part of the scrutiny required to address the allocation of financial resources within the national budget.