Nwoya hospital gets sh18b facelift

By Cornes Lubangakene                              
 
NWOYA - Anaka hospital in Nwoya district will soon have a complete facelift.

This follows the ongoing construction and refurbishment under the Uganda health system strengthening project with funding from World Bank.
 
The ongoing sh18.65b renovation is part of the sh149.1b World Bank funded project to cover nine hospitals.
 
The hospital matron, Sr Stella Amude said: “The hospital was dilapidated due to the twenty years of the LRA rebellion. It had no running water that would not allow use of the flush toilets; staff quarters and wards were broken down and with no hospital ambulance.”
 
Sr Amude said the refurbishment will energize the hospital performance in health service delivery to the community.

The refurbishment has seen construction of a new outpatient department (OPD), renovation works going on in the old OPD, wards, construction of a mortuary, extension of the private wings at the hospital and renovation of staff quarters as well as works on the sewerage and water system.
 
Nwoya district chairman Patrick Okello Oryema recently said the hospital refurbishment by government will relieve the district from the burden of looking for funds to renovate the hospital which would not be easy to raise.
 
“The hospital had no emergency ward, no psychiatric department and it was in a sorry state but we are happy that all these will now be in place and respond to accidents and referrals would be very minimal,” Oryema said.
 
He said with the strength the hospital now has, there is no doubt that it will serve not only the people of Nwoya but also people of Amuru, Pakwach and Karuma.           

According to the ministry of health communication officer Rukia Nakamatte, the project is aimed at delivering the Uganda minimum health care package to Ugandans with a focus on maternal health, new born care and family planning.
 
Nakamatte said estimates put the overall completion works rate at Anaka hospital at 51%.

"Most of the individual structures are at finishing stage while the placenta pit and medical waste pits were handed over to the hospital and are in use," Nakamatte said.

She added: "Under this project, the ministry has procured nineteen ambulances that will be distributed to nineteen hospitals by March. The ministry will also embark on renovation of twenty-seven health centre fours across the country".

The area member of parliament for Nwoya county Richard Todwong said the completion of the hospital refurbishment will boost investments through provision of quality health services to the investors and tourists that come to the district.

"We have so many investors, tourists and accident survivors who could not access quality health services but we this we shall now be able to access better services," Todwong said.

The construction and refurbishment of the hospital was recently launched by President Yoweri Museveni who commissioned the completed new outpatient department.

Other hospitals under the UHSSP include; Nebbi, Moyo, Kiryandongo, Iganga, Entebbe, Mityana, Nakaseke general hospital and Moroto regional referral hospitals.

However, Nakamatte said works in other hospitals are moving at slow pace with most at a completion rate of about 30% due to terrain at the hospitals, lack of funds with the contractors and variations in the contractor costing to the actual work on the ground.

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