Uganda is in the middle of a deadly COVID19 second wave that recently prompted government to impose a second lockdown.
As the country battles the wave, a lot of criticism has been labelled against the Ministry of Health with some blaming it for lack of preparedness to handle the pandemic.
However, despite the challenges that the pandemic has presented across the globe, stretching even the most developed nations, the Health Ministry has been making strides in building the healthcsre capacity of the country.
During the first lockdown last year, the Ministry set out to improve Regional Referral Hospitals with equipment and beef up the country’s health sector.
Details show areas of Intesive Care Units, Oxygen plants and vaccines to counter the pandemic have been given attention. This website has obtained rare access to the ministry of Health documents regarding its expenditure from the onset of the pandemic to date.
ICU BEDS
From the start of the pandemic, the Health Ministry carried out assessment of ICUs in all the hospitals.
In December 2020,143 ICU beds were complete with ventilators, patient monitors and high flow oxygen therapy apparatus were procured and distributed to various facilities.
The ministry installed ICU beds in Mulago National Referral Hospital and Regional Referral Hospitals of Lira, Jinja, St. Mary’s Lacor, Mbale, Entebbe, Kawempe, Mbarara, Soroti, Naguru, Kabale, Hoima, Arua, Bombo, Fort portal, Moroto, Mubende, and Gulu to support critical COVID cases.
According to the ministry, the beds available however, can never be enough if we do not control infection rate, just like we have seen even in countries with stronger health systems.
The British government had a famous campaign they dubbed “Save The NHS” in which they encouraged Britons to religiously follow Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for in doing so, they limit the number of infections and hence less pressure on the health facilities.
Therefore, the Ministry advises Ugandans to follow SOPs because critical care is stretched and it should not be you to be the victim of scarcity of beds.
OXYGEN PLANTS
At the onset of COVID-19 Pandemic in Uganda, the Ministry of Health undertook a needs-assessment, revised specifications and procured 7 oxygen plants, 450 oxygen cylinders, 5 filling stations and other accessories.
All Regional Referral Hospitals have installed oxygen plants (15Nm3/hr) producing about 30 to 48 cylinders of 6800 litres of oxygen per day. However, we are procuring 8 more oxygen plants (200Nm3/hr) to boost the existing capacity for Regional Referral Hospitals.
Each cylinder will produce over 500 cylinders per day. Similarly, 2 more (250Nm3/hr) plants are being procured for Mulago and Namboole and additional 10,000 oxygen cylinders for mobile distribution.
VACCINES
Uganda received the first batch of 964,000 AstraZeneca vaccine in March, 2021 and over 800,000 people have since been vaccinated. An additional 175,200 doses arrived in country in June 2021. The vaccines from this batch have been delivered to all districts.
These are being used to ensure that all health workers and those eligible for their second dose receive the vaccine in an exercise that started on Monday.
The current doses of vaccines are not adequate to cover all those that got the first dose but we expect more doses in July. Government is in the process of securing more vaccines as it works towards achieving its goal of vaccinating at least 22 million people.
AMBULANCES
The Ministry acquired 98 type B and type C road ambulances and 3 boat ambulances distributed under a regionally coordinated ambulance service system to all the 14 regions in the country targeting 1 ambulance per health subdistrict.
The Ministry is expecting 11more boat ambulances to be delivered next month.
As more ambulances are procured all health subdistricts in the country will be covered.
MASKS
During the 2020 lockdown, government through the Ministry of Health, distributed 34 million masks to help prevent the spread of Coronovirus.
The ministry procured and distributed a total of 36,702,048 masks to all Ugandans. Of these, 34,109,085 masks were delivered to 135 Districts for distribution to their communities and 2,592,963 for distribution to schools finalists.
The distribution of facemasks started from the border districts, and followed by districts with cities and municipalities, then districts along the cargo truck transit routes.
COVID-19 TESTING
The rate at which people are being tested has gone up on the recent and it is one of they strategies the Ministry of Health has to try and limit community transmissions by encouraging many to test.
The testing capacity has significantly increased from 74,000 in previous months to 151,000 PCR tests per month and we project to go upto 320,000 PCR tests by end of June.
There is established Gene expert testing at all RRHs to support critical testing. These were enhanced with 16 module gene xpert machines and cartridges.
The Ministry has also distributed Antigen RDTS to all the 135 districts , Regional hospitals, National referral hospitals, District hospitals , Health center IVS and HC IIIs, Uganda Prisons isolation centres and Non traditional Facilities like Namboole.
The Ministry is working with districts to set up outreach testing camps in all districts to increase access and reduce the volume of samples referred to the Central Labs.
PATIENT BEDS
The Ministry states that a total of 1,000 beds, 1,000 mattresses and 1,000 blankets were delivered Namboole by December 2020.
Out of which, 700 beds were fixed in Mandela Auxiliary treatment Centre, Namboole while 300 were re-located to Mulago National Referral Hospital and are being utilized by COVID-19 patients.
It also embarked on further procurement and installation of more beds.
On this front, the Ministry has imported but also given chance to local producers to contribute to the drive.
The health Ministry has imported 1840 beds and 4600 are being manufactured locally to bring total to 6440 patients beds.
TENTS
Early this year, there were reports that tents budgeted for were not procured.
However, it later emerged that Referral Hospitals across the country had received sleeper tents to support their capacities.
The ministry procured 20 sleeper tents to expand bed capacity for Regional Referral Hospitals for isolation of COVID-19 patients. Of these, 2 tents were delivered at Soroti, Lira, Gulu, Arua, Hoima, Kabale, Mubende and Fort Portal, and 1 to Entebbe Regional Referral Hospita and 3 allocated to the UPDF medical services.
All the 20 tents were delivered, erected and are under use at the Regional Referral Hospitals across the country.
ISOLATION CENTRE
Dr Diana reveals that the Ministry is opening the newly constructed Entebbe Isolation Center that has been built for management of such pandemics.
As of 27th June 2021, the cumulative number of positive cases confirmed was at 79,434 cases and cumulative number of recoveries recorded was at 52,382.
It is expected that in the next financial year that begins 1st Juky 2021, government will beef up the pockets of the Health Ministry to help it meet the demands presented by situations like the second wave that has understandably put pressure on the health sector.