🔊 Hoima referral hospital to hold bimonthly public meetings

HOIMA - The administrators of Hoima Regional Referral Hospital in Uganda's mid-western city of Hoima have set out to hold regular public engagement meetings (barazas) as one way of improving services offered at the facility.

The plan is to hold these meetings twice every month, a platform that the hospital has likened to a "parliament".

It is through these engagements with the community that the hospital administrators hope to receive feedback on how to better their service delivery.

The facility is a public hospital funded by the health ministry. 

It is the referral hospital for the districts of Buliisa, Hoima, Kibaale, Kiryandongo, Kagadi, Kakumiro, Kikuube, and Masindi.

Dr Ibrahim Bwaga, the hospital's director, said the barazas will begin next month (February).

They will feature different stakeholders, including political, religious, cultural and opinion leaders selected from across the Bunyoro sub-region.



The meetings will be conducted at the hospital's premises.

Participants will have the opportunity to give feedback and recommendations on the services offered at the facility.

Bwaga said one of the objectives of the meetings will be to fight the vice of extortion by staff.

He said that as administrators, they do not condone corruption and that culprits will be dealt with accordingly. 

The hospital director urged community members to report staff who ask money from them since all services offered at the hospital are free of charge.



Bwaga said despite handling a wide spectrum of people — approximately 3.5 million people — the services at Hoima Regional Referral Hospital have improved.

For instance, the facility has a newly constructed sh8.4 billion intensive care unit with a 20-bed capacity, including isolation beds and an operating theatre.

As at the beginning of this year, the ICU was only awaiting installation of major equipment to start operations.



The hospital started as a district hospital in the early 1930s. It was only until 1994, six decades later, that it was upgraded to a regional referral hospital.