The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Tackling the heavy load
On average 185 patients receive radiotherapy every day at Mulago alone and another 180 cancer patients visit the UCI’s outpatient department on a daily basis. Currently there is at least a 200% bed occupancy rate leading to some cancer patients sleeping on the hospital floor, tents and veranda. UCI has an official bed capacity of 80.
Patients are very many yet health workers in the cancer care centre are few, overworked and underpaid. To solve the challenge of thin medical staff in the cancer treatment centres across the country, the Uganda Cancer Institute; working with the Ministry of Health, has embarked on training 200 health workers with the aim of turning into them into experts in the treatment of cancer.
“Once these are trained, we will have additional trained clinicians who are internationally recognised and apply universally acceptable standards when getting cancer samples like identifying patients correctly, getting the sample in the right way, putting it in the right chemical and transporting it carefully,” says Dr. Jackson Orem, head of UCI. “Accurate diagnosis is crucial, right from the start to ensure pathologists conduct good results and diagnose cancer patients correctly.”
The institute head says currently there is a lot of pressure piled on the available facilities and resources at UCI due to rapidly increasing number of cancer patients. This situation, however, might soon clear, when the the East African Oncology Centre of Excellence under construction at Mulago Hill is completed. The centre will be well equipped to offer sophisticated cancer treatment that is akin to that in the developed world, the UCI administrators say.
In another move to decongest UCI, in-country regional cancer treatment centres have been established in Mbale for the East, Gulu for north, Arua for west Nile and Mbarara for west.
Declining budgets
Over the years, the institute has been asking for budget increase citing the increasing number of cancer patients seeking treatment. Some drugs are very expensive and with an increase in the number of patients, there is need to ensure a budget increment to avoid emergencies arising from shortages.
Three years ago, in 2018, Parliament appropriated Shs93 billion to Uganda Cancer Institute but the entity only received Shs49 billion; representing a release of 52.5% of the approved budget.
Since then, an analysis of the budget allocations to UCI shows a continuous drop in funding. In the 2020/2021 budget, UCI was allocated only Shs34.7 billion while in 2021/22 budget the institute was allocated Shs37 billion. These budget allocations many times do not tally with actual funds the Ministry of Finance releases to the agency. So the Institute relies on donations for some drugs valued at about Shs34 billion.
In March, the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) called for an increase in its budget allocation.
Dr Jackson Orem, the Executive Director of UCI while hosting Parliament’s Committee on Health told them that much as progress is being made, there are structural issues relating to staffing and medication whose costs have shot to the roof. He said much as the institute has installed the latest equipment for radiotherapy and constructed a bunker to house it, Orem fears power outages will reset the systems. He said the budget for drugs requires attention because and the most expensive ones come in form of donations. He said this should be priority number one.
“Number two is that of our human resource,” he said, “and we have submitted our new structure to the Ministry of Public Service for approval.”
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