The head of Kayunga Regional Referral Hospital, Dr. Robert Ssentongo has underscored the need to increase on the number of Medical personnel at the hospital to speed up the flow of medical services.
Dr. Ssentongo said ever since the hospital was upgraded to regional referral status, the number has not been increased yet the number of patients keeps on increasing.
“We had 120 staff, and it is the very number we maintained though we were upgraded, we deal with more than 450 patients which we receive every day, sometimes we are forced to work from morning till 10:00pm without rest, which we find frustrating, but it is our cardinal role to serve the community,” Dr. Ssentongo said.
He made this appeal during a meeting with the Office of the National Chairman NRM (ONC) Coordinators in Greater Mukono, who had paid a courtesy call to the hospital.
Dr. Ssentongo explained to them that although President Yoweri Museveni donated beautiful buildings which is one of the indicators of good services, there is still a shortage of medical personnel to satisfy the community.
“We treat around 4 million patients a year, but you find that the 120 staff we have cannot manage, the fact is that we still need more to satisfy the community with better treatment.At the moment we have only 200 beds, we need to increase the number to 1000. Another problem we have is that our Health center IV’s, III and II fail to handle patients who are critically ill and sometimes they refer them to us when it is too late to save their lives which taints our image with negligence and the community put a blame on us,”he said.
” On the issue of hospital cleanness, the companies that were given the contract have done a good job though we receive the funds on a quarterly basis, sometimes it causes delay in paying the staff but we always pay them when money comes” Dr. Ssentongo added.
ONC Greater Mukono Lead Coordinator Faisal Kigongo Luggya praised the hospital staff performance and urged the management to maintain its quality in order to serve the people of Uganda well.
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