Army to tarmac roads to Entebbe Children’s Surgical Hospital

Entebbe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | President Yoweri Museveni has ordered the Uganda People’s Defence Forces-UPDF to tarmac the roads leading to the Children’s Surgical Hospital in Entebbe municipality. The roads are impassable during heavy downpours and are dusty during the dry season.

He made the directive on Friday while commissioning the hospital, a multibillion facility built under a Public-Private Partnership between the Ministry of Health and Emergency, a humanitarian NGO that provides free medical treatment to victims of war, poverty, and landmines.

The 72-bed capacity facility has three operating theatres, six intensive care units, 16  high dependency unit beds, and one Isolation room. It has six clinics, a radiology room, a laboratory with a blood bank, a CT scanner, pharmacy, auxiliary services, and guesthouses for patients from far, among other facilities.

Museveni also wants a nursing training school to be built near the hospital.

This was after the minister of health Dr Jane Ruth Aceng noted that there is a need to tarmac Lunyo road, Omini road and  Banga-Nakiwogo road to improve access to the hospital. The roads measure close to 4 kilometres in total.

Aceng said the hospital is the first of its kind in Uganda because it will serve as a referral for pediatric surgery within Uganda and the East African region. It will handle children from 0 to 18 years who have birth defects, gynaecological and urological problems, abnormalities in the gastrointestinal tract, bile duct, and other conditions that require general surgery.

Aceng says Emergency will hand over the hospital to the government in 8years.  The Ministry will also pay 20 per cent of the hospital’s annual running costs estimated at about  24 billion Shillings.

Rosella Miccio, the President of Emergency says the facility has treated over 3,000 outpatients and carried out 500 surgical operations since April 2021, when it was partially opened by the ministry. She says the hospital is a testament to what a real partnership between international and national institutions and professionals can result in.

During the six months of operation, Miccio says the hospital has realized that there is a strong need for pediatric elective surgery in the East African region.

Museveni also awarded the 50th Uganda Independence Medal to Paola Coin, Dr Gino Strada (posthumously) Dr Pietro Parrino the Director of Emergency Field Operations Department and Dr Penzo Piano, the architect who designed the hospital. Paola Coin donated 8 million US Dollars, about shillings 2.8 billion. They were recognized for their enormous support and contribution towards the hospital’s construction and current operations.

Museveni says it is unfortunate that Dr Gino Strada, the founding member of the international NGO(Emergency) that funded and is managing the hospital died recently. He however says Gino’s contribution will not go in vain because children will benefit from getting free surgical services, resonating with the Christian concept of “loving your neighbour as yourself”.

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