Mulago gets equipment for maternal healthcare

By Violet Nabatanzi

MULAGO National Referral Hospital has received medical equipment for improving maternal and new-born health care.   The donation comes at a right time when the hospital is overwhelmed with a big number of mothers delivering from there.

The equipment including Blood Pressure machines, Dopplers for foetal monitoring and Vacuum extraction machines were donated by Jhpiego, an International non-profit health organization affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. Annually the hospital delivers 32,000 women. 

Handing over the equipment to the hospital’s executive director, Dr. Baterana Byarugaba, the vice president Technical leadership of Jhpiego, Dr Ron Magarick said the equipment will help in the management of labour for the best outcomes.

Byarugaba commended Jhpiego for the donation saying that the new machines will be maintained and put to good use. 

Jhpiego works with health experts, governments and community leaders to provide high-quality health care for their people it also develops strategies to help countries care for themselves by training competent health care workers, strengthening health systems and improving delivery of care.

The Nursing officer at the labour ward Beatrice Opoti said; the health workers on the ward have been facing a problem of lack of enough equipment used for delivering mothers adding that the ones which are there are overused.

She also said that the space at the labour suit is too small to accommodate the big number of mothers, adding that some of them sleep on the floor.

Recently, Parliament approved government’s request to borrow a sh75b loan from the Islamic Development Bank for the construction of a modern, specialized maternal and neonatal health care unit at Mulago Referral Hospital.

The women’s Hospital, Mulago will be a referral centre for obstetrics and gynaecology patients referred from the lower level health facilities. Maternal mortality stands at 453 deaths per 100,000 births.