Akright to build kidney unit

Jun 24, 2007

AKRIGHT Projects Ltd, a real estate developer, has started the construction of a $1m (about sh1.62b) dialysis centre.

By Ricks Kayizzi

AKRIGHT Projects Ltd, a real estate developer, has started the construction of a $1m (about sh1.62b) dialysis centre.

The centre will treat kidney cases.

The Bartholomew Ruhigirwa Memorial Dialysis Centre, is named after the late father of Anatoli Kamugisha, the Akright’s boss.

It was launched by Emmanuel Otaala, the primary healthcare state minister over the weekend.

Otaala hailed Akright for the initiative, saying Uganda had only four dialysis centres to cater for the thousands of kidney patients.

“While the Government strives to adopt and provide universal healthcare for all, we are also urging the private sector to lend us a hand,” he said.

The minister explained that because of the improving standard of living among Ugandans, diseases like diabetes, obesity, hypertension and renal failure had become common.

He said this precipitated kidney failure.

Kamugisha said the medical unit would be built on a 40,000sq kms (10 acres) of land at the Kakungulu Akright Housing Estate on Entebbe Road.

“We want to fight medical tourism which prompts our people to go to India for complicated life-saving surgery,” he said.

He said they had assumed a three-pronged system of health, wealth and productivity for people who have settled in their six housing estates.

Christopher Atwater, a US biomedical engineer, the centre’s consultant, said they had already contacted some organisations to finance the project.

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