The Minister of Health, Dr. Ruth Aceng has defended Governments’ proposal to borrow Shs65bn from African Development Fund to finance the expansion and equipping Uganda Cancer Institute.
Appearing before Parliament’s National Economy Committee, Aceng defended the move on Monday, noting that the funds will improve cancer care in Uganda and help reduce the workload oncologists are grappling with.
“The doctors are very few and overwhelmed with work. If you stepped inside Uganda Cancer Institute today, from the door way, corridors, even near the washrooms, there are patients. In other countries, they don’t work like that. You will have one doctor attending to 1 or 2 patients in a day, these ones see how many in a day? In huge numbers, anyone would get tired and not do exactly, what you would want to do,” Aceng said.
She added, “That is why we need to train as many (Oncologists) as possible, but also, we need to recruit them and also remunerate them better,”
She noted that the project is part of the three East Africa’s Centres of Excellence for Skills project in which Uganda was to lead in Oncology, while Tanzania and Kenya were to lead in Cardiology and mythology respectively.
Meanwhile, Henry Musasizi, Minister of State for Finance while justifying the need for additional resources explained that the construction of the Centre was initially scheduled to take 24months, however, due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the contractors cash flow challenges, the implementation of the civil works activities delayed for 18months.
The civil works contract therefore stretched to over 42 months and prices of materials and labour subsequently increased.
“The demand for cancer care is growing and this, coupled with inadequate infrastructure has incapacitated the Uganda Cancer Institute from providing effective service delivery to patients. The limited infrastructure at the Centre has resulted in congestion, more complications, more expensive alternatives, premature deaths and increased referrals abroad,” Musasizi said.
Available data shows that the cumulative number of patients on the waiting list for nuclear medicines stands at over 500 adult patients.
Minister Musasizi noted that the expansion of treatment and care facilities is thus a priority for Government.
The Vice Chairperson, National Economy Committee Robert Migadde questioned whether the approval of the loan would bring an end to people going abroad abroad for cancer treatment.
“Are we going to see an end to people going to other nations if we approve this loan? Because we have patients going to Aga Khan Hospital, now that we have East Africa with Kenya, Rwanda, are we going to see different patients coming here for the different services?” he questioned.