The Non-Tax Revenue (NTR) estimated at Shs600 billion that is generated by referral hospitals across the country should be retained by the facilities and used to improve on services offered.
The proposal was put forward by the Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa, during a meeting with the leadership of Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital on Friday, 27 September 2024 at the hospital.
There are 17 regional referral and 62 general hospitals in the country.
According to the Ministry of Health, Uganda’s health facilities are classified into seven levels based on the services they provide and the catchment area they are intended to serve.
The health facilities are designated as Health Centre Level One (HC I) to Health Centre Level Four (HC IV); general hospital; regional referral hospital and national referral hospital.
The Deputy Speaker also revealed a proposal to upgrade the Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital into a national referral hospital after the upgrade of Kitagata General Hospital in Sheema District to a regional referral hospital.
“We should have a national referral hospital in the four traditional regions of Uganda, that is Eastern, Western, Northern and the Central where we already have Mulago. With this, we can reduce some of the burden that keeps coming to these centres,” said Tayebwa.
Among the concerns raised by Dr Deus Twesigye, the hospital’s Acting Executive Director, was the insufficient budget to cater for the non-wage recurrent budget and retooling budget of the hospital.
He said that in the running financial year, the hospital has a non-wage allocation of Shs4.125 billion to cater for pension, gratuity, water and electricity among others, whereas the retooling budget allocation stands at Shs120 million.
“Equipping a single theatre requires roughly Shs290 million. If you are buying a monitor, a theatre bed and an anesthesia machine, that means even if we decided to buy just a single machine, we cannot afford it. If we tried to buy the cheapest at the cost of Shs120 million, we shall not repair anything,” Twesigye said.
The Deputy Speaker noted that the limited funding to hospital facilities is not deliberate, but is attributed to a limited resource envelope.
“We intend to make radical decisions in the coming budget to ensure that we improve health service delivery for our people. The operating centres are in dire need of support. If we get you around Shs3 billion, we should be able to sort out the issue of operations, and I am going to fight hard for this,” Tayebwa said.
He also urged the hospital to take a leading stand in the fight against malaria.
“As government, we are losing a lot of money in treating malaria. The statistics of the people dying because of this are so frightening, as some die from villages. We must eliminate malaria so that we can reduce the disease burden, and then save so much on the budget for the health sector,” the Deputy Speaker added.
