Mulago Specialized Women and Neonatal Hospital is seeking for additional Shs4Billion to hire 86 new staff in order to operationalise the 7 theatres that are idle due to lack of specialists, and the new staff would reduce on the workload, where one nurse is being forced to attend to 10 babies in the neonatal unit, yet the recommended ratio requires one nurse to attend to 1-2 babies.
The appeal was made by Dr. Evelyn Nabunya, Executive Director of Mulago Specialized Women and Neonatal Hospital, while appearing before Parliament’s Health Committee to present the Hospital’s 2025/26 national budget.
She said the money is required to recruit super specialists such as in anaesthesia, intensive care.
“We have 11 theatres, but up to date four or five are operational. And this is because of lack of the critical staff that are needed to operationalise the others. We also have deficit in neonatology. We also need nurses in the critical care areas that is theatre, NICU, ICU and others. These are required to improve the nurse patient ratio. As we stand, the recommendation in the NICU in the high level care is one nurse looking after one to two babies, while currently we have one nurse looking after 10 to 15 babies,” explained Dr. Nabunya.
Dr. Nabeunya added, “And this affects service delivery and also client satisfaction. This is an intensive care unit, just like others. So, the hospital needs Shs4,080,043,704 to be able to recruit the 86 staff and this will help to improve the field staff structure to 50%. It will also help to retain our staff through promotion. We expect to promote more staff.”
Mulago Women’s Hospital also informed the Committee of the need for more resources to the tune of Shs2.9Bn for maintenance of machinery and equipment other than transport equipment in order to boost access to fertility services like IVF, where the hospital is currently spending over Shs13M, and yet there are plans to offer IVF services to 100 women in 2025/26.
“We do have new services on board, such as the IVF that had not previously been budgeted for. So, when we take an example, one cycle of IVF from stimulation up to embryo transfer requires 13.35 million, So the target for the hospital is to be able to offer up to 100 clients, that is around 25 or 24 in a quarter. So, in order to do that, already that would be Shs1.35Bn yet our budget is not able to cater for that, we will require Shs2.914Bn,” added Dr. Nabunya.
Dr. Nabunya also provided an update on the tiniest baby treated at the Hospital noting, “I’m glad to let you know that our smallest surviving baby that I’ve reported on before was born at 24 weeks and weighed 500 grammes. That baby by the end of the quarter two had made two and a half years. That baby is now in school, and has started nursery school. We now have a baby of 80 grams that we are following up on. And we believe this year that baby will turn one year old and we’ll be able to report on her as well.”
Mulago Specialized Women and Neonatal Hospital informed Parliament that the facility started offering IVF services and so far, the Hospital is monitoring five pregnancies whose results will determine if the services will be opened further to the public.
“I’m glad to let you know that we began the IVF services, the long-awaited. As we stand, we have five pregnancies up to date, one of them being a twin pregnancy. We are getting into the third trimester for the first baby. We have tried to be slow and we wait for the actual babies to come out. We want the babies, and then we’ll be able to open up. So, we are proud of our team for the work they’ve done,” explained Dr. Nabunya.
