Medical experts call for local investment in tertiary healthcare

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The COVID-19 pandemic that has put a halt on foreign travels has exposed how some of the trips including those seeking treatment abroad are just unnecessary, medical experts have observed.

Dr William Anzo, a researcher and gynecologist at Mulago Hospital told Uganda Radio Network that only 16 percent of those that go abroad for treatment deserve to go yet even when they travel, they are treated by Ugandan doctors who left the country for greener pastures.

The exact amount of money spent on treatment abroad remains unknown as some of those that seek care privately are never documented. But the Ministry of Finance figures show that in 2016 alone, 8,200 people applied for medical visas to travel to India which is the biggest treatment destination for Ugandans. Of those that applied, 5,000 were sent and catered for by the government at a cost of USD 123 million Shillings (459 billion Shillings).

Dr Anzo observed that officials who travel abroad for treatment get the same treatment they can get back home at lower rates and sometimes using huge government funds for cases that would have been handled here. Many travel for the treatment of cancer and heart disease to minor surgeries and caesarean section deliveries.

There is hope that a lot of the money spent on treatment abroad will be saved this year with now three months of lockdown which according to Dr Jackson Amone, the secretary to the medical board that approves medical travels caused them to halt operations.

Amone said on Friday that none of those that had been scheduled and approved for medical travel at the time of closure of the airport in March have traveled yet, still none of them has died as they continue receiving care in-country. He couldn’t though divulge the exact number of those that were on the waiting list.

While the government cannot stop those that want to seek care abroad, Anzo says that post-COVID-19, the government should invest within the country to ensure that such procedures that attract majority foreign travels can be fully and satisfactorily done here.

Dr Stephen Ayella Ataro, the Vice President of the Uganda Medical Association said the challenge with seeking care abroad is that Ugandans are free to seek self -referrals in panic without understanding what can be done here. For him, the government should use the eye-opener that COVID-19 has been to sort out what has been deterring them from offering such care and attracting those that can pay for it.

However, even as those that URN spoke to say Uganda can handle even tertiary cases currently, the promise by the government for tertiary is after Mulago Specialised National Referral Hospital fully opens to offer such procedures as organ transplants. Over 100 specialists have been sent to India to train in offering these treatments and most of them have come back.

Anzo says he knows some of those that have returned and are idle not doing what they specialized in.

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