Kaggwa healed Mulago’s wounds

Sep 25, 2005

DURING Dr. Lawrence Kaggwa’s term of office, tales of missing babies, oxygen shortage and people dying due to negligence at the country’s biggest hospital caused public uproar.

By Arthur Baguma
and Paul Kiwuuwa

DURING Dr. Lawrence Kaggwa’s term of office, tales of missing babies, oxygen shortage and people dying due to negligence at the country’s biggest hospital caused public uproar. But under his leadership, the once bribery-prone, dirty and ill-equipped Mulago was transformed into a modern national referral hospital.
Kaggwa, the longest-serving director of Mulago, is taking up the post of planning director at the Ministry of Health. He humbly built his career in Uganda’s medical sector through trials and rose through the ranks to head the country’s biggest referral hospital.
“It has been a long 12 years of service as an executive director. The recovery process of Mulago Hospital has almost come to its conclusion,” Kaggwa says.
While many still bemoan the hospital’s service delivery, others believe it has improved in the last decade.
Not long ago, corruption welcomed you at the entrance. A guard on duty demanded chai before allowing you in. Attending to your patient in time meant parting with something or else he would die in your hands or would be left unattended to for a long time.
“But things have changed. The hospital is run professionally. It is more hygienic and well equipped with relatively well motivated staff,” remarks a doctor at Mulago.
Kaggwa says his parents (RIP) Dominico Njagala and Dorotia Nalubowa advised him to join the medical professional. “My father inspired me on the grounds that I wouldn’t fail to get a job in the medical profession,” he says.
After university, many of his friends left the country because of the political turmoil at the time. Kaggwa stayed and faced many challenges. “I was a victim of a deadly virus Marburg that resembles Ebola, which lasted four months in 1977. We lost 13 staff members before World Health Organisation (WHO) stepped in to help,” he narrates.
Born in a family of 11, Kaggwa is seventh in line. He is married to Joseline, a senior Pharmacist at Mulago Hospital, and is blessed with eight children. He is a disciplinarian who believes in results. He has a superb command of the English language. According to his colleagues, Kaggwa is approachable and down to earth.
During his free time he tries out mweso and chess. He loves soccer and is an ardent fan of Arsenal and the Brazilian national team. He is also an active church member at Christ the King Church in Kampala and a member of Mengo Rotary Club. He is a workaholic and once remarked that he loves doing something all the time. To understand this, one had to witness his typical working day.
Crest-fallen people hover around the hospital to meet him. They intercept him in the corridors demanding immediate attention to their suffering loved ones. With a smile on his baby face, he listens to all and addresses their queries.
“The new director is facing a similar problem. You will find people with all sorts of problems insisting on meeting the director personally. There is a feeling they derive from talking to the boss directly,” says Elphaz Sekabira, the hospital’s spokesperson.
Kaggwa is a smart man who loves donning suits and neckties. Since his early school days, he has been intelligent and hard-working.
He was Kisubi’s best A’Level student in 1968 and he emerged the best medicine student at Makerere University in 1974. As a specialist surgeon since 1980, Kaggwa taught treatment and research to medical students and postgraduate doctors — a venture he successfully accomplished.
“I fulfiled these roles to the best of my ability, until the President identified me and I was appointed the Director of Mulago Hospital since September 1993,” Kaggwa says.
To his schoolmates, Kaggwa was a mature and focused person even at a tender age.
“I remember I joined Kitovu when he was about to leave. He was quiet, humble but very brilliant; his performance in sciences may never be equalled in the history of Kitovu,” says Ken Lukyamuzi, an old boy.
Dr. Sam Luboga, a classmate of his at St. Mary’s Kisubi and Makerere University, says Kaggwa is a jolly and humourous person. “He was always in the first position in class. He was unselfish and ready to share ideas with colleagues,” Luboga says.

A female nurse, who worked with Kaggwa at the casualty and general surgical ward on condition of anonymity, says: “He trained me to prepare all the surgical equipment in advance and not to wait for a patient to get into theatre and then mess up, something that saved many peoples’ lives.”
By the time Kaggwa joined Mulago Hospital, it had not received any significant form of rehabilitation for over 80 years.
He used the African Development Bank fund worth $37m to make Mulago what it is today. The projects implemented include modernisation of 17 theatres, launching of open-heart surgery, and infectious disease institutes and the introduction of Unit Costing as a basis for assessing efficiency management among others.
“We introduced training of specialists and equipped staff with managerial initiatives, that enabled corroborative research linkages,” Kaggwa says.
“He is a good manager who knows how to apply theoretical thinking to practical management. He is also a good organiser of people,” Dr Timothy Musira, a consultant with KCC, says.
Musira, however, says Kaggwa’s weakness is biased towards only clinical care as opposed to other health care aspects. “Health is more than having more hospitals constructed, having qualified staff and medicine in the hospital. There are other aspects which could improve health as well,” Musira says.
The overall purpose of the rehabilitation was to restore the functional status of Mulago Hospital to effectively manage the complicated cases and stem down the number of cases referred abroad.
Kaggwa says The British Medical Council (BMC) had struck Mulago Hospital off the list of referral hospitals worldwide with the required standards during the political turmoil.
“BMC re-established Mulago’s recognition with the required established standards in 1998, and foreign medical students and researchers come from abroad to offer their expertise, something that had been forgotten,” he says.
Kaggwa, in the months preceding his departure, said 70% of the rehabilitation had been completed. “The remaining 30% needs to be done. Thereafter, a preventive maintenance plan should be funded to apply the stitch-in-time and prevent future rehabilitation,” Kaggwa said.
Among his achievements is a successful supervision of a series of large rehabilitation projects at the hospital.
He hosted many successful research projects and adopted modern management principles in a traditionally bureaucratic civil service setting. He also spearheaded the modernisation of 17 theatres to international standards.
But to a lady who lost a bag and valuables in a ward recently, not all is well at the country’s biggest hospital — you have to take precautionary measures even within the hospital walls to avoid losing your valuables. Allegations of negligence by medical personnel keep resurfacing but the hospital provides better services than it did some years back — the only reason Kaggwa is leaving the hospital a happy man.
“I’m happy about transforming a crumbling organisation to acceptable standards in terms of training, setting up of Uganda Heart Institute, the burns treatment unity and, installing modern equipment,” he says.
Ends

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