UCI to train 200 health workers

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda Cancer Institute plans to train 200 health workers in the next five years to manage cancer treatment. This will bring the number of health care workers to 400.

The health workers will be trained in proper diagnosis of different types of cancers in both adults and children. They will also be trained on how to provide world-class care using new technologies to treat cancer in Uganda.

Others will specialize in different fields of cancer treatment like pediatric oncology, gynecology oncology and adult oncology.

Currently, the health facility employs 198 health workers consisting of doctors and nurses. This according to doctors at UCI is insufficient given the number of patients received annually.

According to data from the Kampala Cancer Registry, UCI received 32,000 new cancer patients in 2018. However, 22,000 died due to poor diagnosis of cancers by health workers.

Dr Nixon Niyonzima, the head of research and training at UCI, says the trained health workers will address the problem of poor cancer diagnosis.

UCI will next year also carry out a fellow exchange programme with Cambridge University.

The fellowship is not the first of its kind. In the past fellowships of the same nature have been carried out with Duke University, the University of Washington, the Fred Hutchison Foundation and Seattle Children’s Hospital.

However, during such fellowships, only ten to fifteen doctors benefit every one or two years due to the expenses involved.

Dr Jackson Orem, the Executive Director of UCI says that the training of health workers is going to elevate the standard of the cancer care in the country.

“Universities such as Cambridge University are very prestigious. It is one of the oldest and best universities in the world. If they are partnering with us, this means we are going to offer the best care. We are going to be the best of the best.”Orem says

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