Govt asked to increase health budget

Officials argue that the acute shortage of blood is due to inadequate funding, saying that they requested for sh18b last financial year

By Francis Emorut

The Government has been asked to increase the health budget ahead of today’s budget speech.

“We ask the minister of finance to announce an increase in the entire health budget to sufficiently cater for health centres in all the 112 districts and to support Uganda Blood Transfusion Services, which has suffered an acute shortage of blood,” said Beatrice Nabajja Mugambe, the executive director of Development Research and Training.

This was in a statement jointly released by civil society budget group.

The country’s major hospitals and health centres ran out of blood supply last week, which was blamed on lack of testing skits.

However, Uganda Blood Transfusion Services officials argued that the acute shortage of blood was due to inadequate funding, saying that they requested for sh18b last financial year of which the Government released sh7b.

This has irked the activists who called an impromptu media briefing in Kansanga, a Kampala suburb, saying Government should prioritise the health sector.