Govt to deploy doctors at health centre IIIs under sector overhaul
Baryomunsi said the government was no longer prioritising the construction of new Health Centre IIs at parish level, but would instead focus on strengthening Health Centre IIIs, Health Centre IVs and hospitals.
Health minister Dr Chris Baryomunsi told Parliament on September 2, 2026, that the staffing structure for Health Centre IIIs had been revised from 19 to 55 health workers, including two medical officers. (File photo)
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Government is set to deploy medical doctors at Health Centre III level as part of efforts to strengthen primary healthcare and bring higher-level medical services closer to communities.
Health minister Dr Chris Baryomunsi told Parliament on September 2, 2026, that the staffing structure for Health Centre IIIs had been revised from 19 to 55 health workers, including two medical officers.
The new staffing structure is part of Government’s plans under the second phase of the Uganda Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers Programme (UgIFT II) to strengthen existing health facilities and improve access to essential services.
Baryomunsi said the government was no longer prioritising the construction of new Health Centre IIs at parish level, but would instead focus on strengthening Health Centre IIIs, Health Centre IVs and hospitals.
“We are no longer constructing Health Centre IIs. We want to strengthen the Health Centre IIIs, Health Centre IVs and hospitals,” Baryomunsi told MPs.
He said existing Health Centre IIs would be upgraded to Health Centre III status, with Government able to reconsider the construction of new parish-level facilities after strengthening the higher-level facilities.
The health minister said the changes were intended to ensure that health infrastructure was matched with adequate human resources and services.
Under the revised staffing structure, each Health Centre III will have 55 health workers, up from the previous 19, including two medical officers. The government also plans to upgrade all Health Centre IVs into community hospitals.
Baryomunsi said staffing at Health Centre IV level would increase from 49 to 130 health workers, including five doctors. The expansion is expected to strengthen the capacity of lower-level facilities to handle more complicated cases and reduce the need for patients to travel long distances to hospitals.
Gains under UgIFT I
Baryomunsi said the first phase of UgIFT had already expanded access to higher-level primary healthcare facilities across the country. The government completed 373 Health Centre IIIs under UgIFT I, achieving the programme’s target.
However, Baryomunsi said the Government still faced significant gaps and would have to prioritise investments under UgIFT II.
He told Parliament that 488 subcounties still lacked a Health Centre III, while 125 constituencies had no Health Centre IV. More than 1,000 existing health facilities also require rehabilitation.
“We cannot address all these gaps at once,” Baryomunsi said, explaining that Government would phase investments using a criteria-based prioritisation formula.
The proposed formula will consider population, distance and travel time to the nearest health facility, disease burden, maternal health indicators and the condition of existing facilities.
Other factors will include refugee-hosting status, regional equity, land availability and construction readiness.
Baryomunsi said the formula would be finalised in consultation with local governments, Members of Parliament and development partners before being applied to UgIFT II projects.
He said the approach would help Government move away from ad hoc decisions on where health facilities are constructed.
“The ultimate measure of an infrastructure programme is not the number of buildings constructed, but the extent to which those investments improve the lives of Ugandans,” Baryomunsi said.
Focus on staffing and medicines
The minister said Government had recruited 4,628 health workers under UgIFT, although the current workforce represents about 34% of the newly approved staffing structure. He attributed the figure partly to the revised staffing norms, which have significantly increased the number of workers required at health facilities.
The planned expansion will also include greater use of digital technology in health facilities. Baryomunsi told MPs that Government had licensed Starlink and was considering an offer to connect many health facilities across Uganda to improve digital connectivity.
The Minister said the broader reforms were aimed at improving the quality and accessibility of healthcare, particularly at the primary-care level.
He also reaffirmed Government’s commitment to improving maternal healthcare, saying no woman should die from pregnancy or childbirth-related complications.
“Pregnancy and childbirth should be celebrated and not mourned because women play a great role in giving life and that should be celebrated,” Baryomunsi said.
Soroti District Woman Representative Anna Adeke welcomed the focus on strengthening health facilities but called for greater accountability to ensure the investments translate into actual services. She asked the Auditor General to establish the exact number of UgIFT facilities that remain non-functional and what is required to operationalise them.
“It is a contradiction to build state-of-the-art facilities while maintaining a restrictive recruitment cap on local governments,” Adeke said, noting that some upgraded health centres were being managed by overstretched nursing assistants or single midwives working long shifts.
Adeke said the Government’s expansion of health infrastructure must be accompanied by adequate recruitment, noting that some upgraded facilities were operating with severely limited staff. She said some centres were being run by nursing assistants or single midwives working 48-hour shifts, despite the new facilities requiring more health workers.
“Many health centres that have been upgraded are currently managed by overstretched nursing assistants or single midwives doing 48-hour shifts,” she said.
Mukono Municipality MP Betty Nambooze Bakireke also urged Government to ensure that the expansion of health infrastructure is matched with timely completion, staffing and functionality. Citing Auditor General findings, she told Parliament that field inspections had found significant gaps between reported completion and actual operation of some UgIFT facilities.
Nambooze said the concerns should inform the next phase of UgIFT, particularly as Government moves to expand and upgrade more health centres, warning that communities need functioning health services rather than buildings that remain unused.
Nambooze cited a gap between Government’s reported performance and findings from field inspections. She told Parliament that while programme monitoring reports indicated that 231 of 247 completed Health Centre IIIs were operational, an Auditor General inspection of 54 selected facilities found only 22 operational, representing 41%, while 32 facilities, or 59%, were not operational.
“The Auditor General's findings show that only 22 out of 54 selected facilities were operational,” she said.