MPs task Mulago women hospital administration to justify high charges on patients

Members of Parliament on Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee have protested that charges imposed on patients at Mulago Specialised Women and Neonatal Hospital, yet the facility is only collecting only Shs7Bn in revenue annually, compared to around Shs31Bn annual budget the facility receives from Government.

This was after Muwanga Kivumbi (Butambala County) asked the Hospital administrators to provide the breakdown of costs charged patients, and wondered if the revenue collected from the patients is worth having the facility continue charging Ugandans who are also servicing the US$34.14 Million (Shs129.220Bn) acquired from the Islamic Development Bank for its construction.

“We are still even paying the loan that built this facility, so we want to know this facility, beautiful as it is, why it charges Ugandans. We continue to subsidize you, your NTR is just Shs7Bn maximum, your budget is Shs31Bn so if we are paying you, how much are you charging us? Justify why you charge that money,” said Muwanga, who doubles as Chairperson PAC.

Administrators of Mulago Specialised Women & Neonatal Hospital revealed that women who have normal delivery on the Gold card are charged Shs1M, while normal delivery under Platinum is Shs2.5M, C-Section under silver is Shs1.3M, while holders of the gold card that undergo C-section are charged Shs2.5M, while patients on gold card are charged Shs2.5M, while the VIP platinum cost Shs4M for patients who have C-section.

Upon receiving the rates, Muwanga wondered what would happen if Government instead boosted the Hospital’s budget by the amount of revenue collections and have Ugandans complete the payment of the loan used to build the hospital.

“A facility that charges this much also continues to encroach on the public purse and it is highly subsidized by Government and when you look at the trend of your NTR, it is about Shs7Bn a year would that justify why we shouldn’t find the money as Government top up for what they could have lost in NTR. With all the ambiance you have and everything, the revenue is nowhere, it is very low.  If we allocated you additional Shs7Bn and told you from today onwards offer free services, will that be fine with this entity?” noted Muwanga.

However, Dr. Evelyn Nabunya, Executive Director at Mulago Specialised Women and Neonatal Hospital said the decision for the facility to charge Ugandans was taken by Cabinet, which also ordered for the establishment of a Waiver Committee to deal with cases of Ugandans who can’t afford rates charged by the Hospital.

“The decision to be able to charge for services came from Cabinet and a team of Cabinet members came here to verify why people should pay and they guided the team on how to set these charges and they also guided that there should be a waiver Committee to be enable Ugandans who can’t afford the services to be able to access them,” said Nabunya.

In a related incident, MPS also questioned why Government opted to install lifts in Kawempe National Referral Hospital that were meant to last for only 5years, a decision that has left expectant mothers and mothers to grapple with use of stairs during the numerous breakdowns of these lifts.

The revelation was made by Emmanuel Byaruhanga, Executive Director, Kawempe National Referral Hospital while meeting held to scrutinize the December 2023 Auditor General’s report, where he said the challenge is exacerbated by the high volume of patients, and worse still, the Hospital was built in a swamp and during the rainy season, lifts constantly breakdown and at the moment, one, out of the three is out of service.

Alfred Enywaku, Biomedical Engineer at Kawempe Hospital was tasked to explain the challenge affecting the lifts at the facility.

“The challenge that we are having is the high-water level by nature of construction of lifts, they usually go down into the grounds so what happens, water sips from the surrounding, it is like you are creating a well, so as the lift goes down in the basement, in the rain season like this one, it sips the water, so this water gets its way into the lift, the lift has chains behind with the thread that locks it. If the chain cuts, the water gets its way into the wires,” explained Enywaku.

However, Muwanga rejected the excuse given that the constant breakdowns of the lifts is due to the fact that Kawempe Hospital was built in a swamp but rather blamed it on the incompetent engineering job done by the contractors at the time of construction.

“That was just an engineering challenge. We even build in proper swamps and even in the swamp when you build, you can even reach a firm level and once you reach a firm level from there, you can construct and I don’t think that firm level in this place is far. I do a lot of building. Actually, in some areas you go down, you excavate, you reach a firm ground, you begin to build from there, you do a water proof casing of where the lift will be all over the hospital. How can someone say that is a huge challenge? Even me a pedestrian without being an engineer, those things I can do,” he said.