The Minister for Health, Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng, has commissioned three fully equipped surgery theatres at the children’s’ ward in Mulago Specialised Hospital.
This is the first time in history for Uganda to have theatres for children.
The theatres are designed and equipped with support from Kids operation room Organisation, a Scottish Charity organisation.
Addressing the media during the launch of the theatres, Dr. Aceng said the theatre suites will reduce the burden levied on other government hospitals especially Naguru Hospital which is currently handling children.
Aceng said the ministry is also working with the ministry of finance and public service to solve the probem of human resource.
“In the few days time,the ministes from finance will come to see the asset we have here as we continue with the discussion.we need to plan for these facilities come next financial year so having this theater here and training n the pediatric surgeons to work on different peadtric specalities will mean we don’t need to refer children abroad,” she noted.
The head of the pediatric surgical unit at the specialised hospital Dr.John Sekabira said every year the pediatric wing of Mulago hospital attends to over 800 children who requires surgery.
He said that the five theatre suits could not handle hug number of patients in which situation created a backblock.
“We could only work on 1 and a half days ,actually we used to book and you could see 1000 children awaiting surgery and we hope after ,the opening of Mulago we are going to even have more children getting safe surgery,” Dr John Sekabira said.
The executive director Mulago hospital Dr. Byarugaba Baterna said there is need for more specialists.
“We have about 4 medical surgeons and we are training more if I could have ten we could try and sit with those ones,” Dr Byarugaba said.
The donors of the equipment kids operation room organisation said they will also train specialists to much the needs, required to efficiently operate the theatres sustainably.