CSOs warn Gov’t on low funding for Primary Health Care interventions

Civil Society Organisations under their umbrella organization Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group (CSBAG) have warned about the Government’s low funding to community healthcare interventions in Uganda despite the Government’s commitment to transition from curative to preventive healthcare.

While interfacing with Parliament’s Health Committee on the Financial Year 2024/25 National Budget Framework Paper ON jANUARY 11,2023,, the CSOs said that the wage bill for the Health Sector has remained stagnant meaning that the Ministry is unable to recruit and fill positions in the new staffing structure that would support the Primary Health Care (PHC) function.

“Whereas the new staffing norm provides staffing for strengthening of PHC, these have not been recruited. Village Health Teams (VHTs) are the cornerstone of our PHC and failure to train and retool them means that government commitment as provided in the NBFP 2024/25 of “Expansion of Community level health promotion, education, and prevention services in all programs” will be difficult to achieve,” said Peter Eceru, the Advocacy Programme Coordinator at Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD).

He added that although the Ministry of Health has undertaken an initiative to retool Village Health Teams as part of the rollout of the National Community Health Strategy, the Ministry has been hit by the funding gap of UGX 6 billion for training VHTs from 61 districts.

He called for an increase in the Primary Health Care budgets to cater for training, retooling, and compensating of VHTs. There is a need to increase funding to deepen Primary Health Care.

“Provide additional wage Bill for recruitment of PHC-related staff under the new health sector staffing norm. Since the priority is to migrate from curative to prevention services, this should be reflected in the recruitment of any new staff and to strengthen supervisory structures.”

While responding to CSO concerns, the Parliamentary Health Committee Chair Dr Charles agreed with the CSO’s view on funding Primary Health Care. He also says there’s a need to increase the funding for the Regional Referral Hospitals.

“I think we need to put our energies on the funding for Primary Health Care. That, I support it! On the issue of stockouts of essential medicine and health supplies, the Committee Vice Chairperson Dr Samuel Opio Acuti said that in the FY 2023/24, the Government provided additional UGX 74b for essential medicines to hospitals and it’s imperative that CSOs find out the impact of the additional funding to health service delivery.

“Year in, and year out, the area of medical equipment remains under the unfunded priorities, we need to have an extra keen eye on that,” he stated.

CSOs also expressed concern about the shortage of life-saving blood, yet haemorrhage continues to be the leading cause of maternal death, contributing to 40% of all deaths reviewed.

They called for a progressive increase in the financing to the Uganda Blood Transfusion Service. Other concerns include the limited provision of Adolescent and Youth Health Services, funding Limitations for the Sustainable Medical Oxygen Sector, high out-of-pocket expenditure and absence of a Public Health Insurance Scheme, and inadequate human resources for health among others