Mulago starts fertility treatment in June

MULAGO    FERTILITY   TREATMENT   JUNE

Despite having opened its doors to patients last year on September 17, the Mulago Specialised Maternal and Neonatal Hospital, which was supposed to offer affordable fertility treatment services alongside other gynecology related services, has not yet started offering the fertility treatment services.

In an interview with Saturday Vision, the hospital's principal hospital administrator, David Nuwamanya, the services are likely to start early June.

"The final touches are taking place now," he said.

In an earlier interview with Saturday Vision, the hospital's executive director Baterana Byarugaba, the fertility treatment services were delayed as a result of fund shortage to purchase equipment, and that the hospital had requested for a supplementary budget.

In an earlier interview with New Vision, Mark Muyingo, the head of reproductive medicine and infertility division noted that out of every 100 couples, 10 have infertility issues.

He said the fertility treatment services offered at Mulago are more affordable than those in the private hospitals.

"And the affordability is not because we are offering poor quality services. We are going to offer the best services that you can find anywhere in the world but as a public facility we have subsidies from government as well as collaborators we are going to work with to have the service subsided," he said.

Figures obtained by Saturday Vision show that in-vitro fertilization (IVF) at Mulago Hospital goes for sh13m while some private facilities charge over sh20m.

Muyingo noted that much as the services are not unique to Mulago in Uganda, Mulago is the only public health facility offering them.

"This service is not unique only to this hospital but the most unique thing about it is the fact that it's the only service which is going to be offered in a public facility. The other unique thing is that we have specialised people working together including the visiting specialists from other areas who we are going to co-ordinate with and work to ensure that this service is the best in east and central Africa, as well as southern Africa," he said.

Apart from IVF, among the other fertility services is the hospital is set to offer is the intra cytoplasmic sperm injection popularly known as ‘sperm injection' which goes for sh14.6m. The service is offered to males who have problems with the male gamete, the sperm, for example low sperm count, poor mobility and inability to fertilize among others.

The hospital will also offer cryo preservation whereby eggs can be stored for up to 10 years. This is sh3m per year.

Currently, the hospital is offering specialised treatment for high-risk antenatal care, delivery and postnatal services and neonatal intensive care unit where children born with congenital conditions can receive treatment.

The hospital, whose under construction began in 2013, is a 400-bed facility. Its construction was financed by a loan from the Islamic Development Bank.