Museveni expected to commission a shs40b regional cancer institute in Omoro

Gulu | The government is in the process of formally commissioning a shs40 billion cancer facility that will provide free services to Ugandans, according to the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) management.

The revelation came on Friday, after UCI’s Executive Director, Dr Jackson Orem, led a delegation of Uganda’s top management directly involved in cancer control and treatment through a physical inspection of the first regional Cancer Institute.

This new facility is located in Koro sub-county, Omoro district, South of Gulu City in Northern Uganda.

In his address delivered minutes after the tour of the state-of-the-art facility, the UCI board chairperson Prof William Bazeyo revealed that no patient is required to pay for services offered.

“We are not charging patients at the centre. We are going through a process of how to manage [the facility concerning] non-Ugandans. And for Ugandans, we are not charging them and I want to promise the community and people around that we shall have the most trained health workers [serving patients at the Gulu facility],” he said.

He hopes that the reports on the facility that will be provided to President Museveni will allow him to officially commission it by June of this year.

“We came here with the view to determine the [official] date [for commissioning the facility], and when we leave here, we will certainly determine [that] date through the Ministry of Health and then we invite the President to commission,” he said adding, “We hope that by mid-June, we shall be able to commission this centre.”

The facility, however, is hampered by staffing shortages, which Dr. Orem stated will be addressed if sufficient funding is provided to UCI management to recruit a minimum of 250 staff required to fully operationalize the facility.

“The centre within the next 3 months should be ready for commissioning,” he noted, hoping the facility gets adequate “funding in the next [financial year’s] budget so that it is fully functional.”

“As you can see, the equipment is there, the infrastructure itself is in place, what now we need is the staffing, and for the staffing, we already have a structure for this place, it is just a matter of recruiting people but that recruitment can only happen if we have a budget.”

Currently, the facility is operated by only a quarter of the total required staff, who have been dealing with patients since it opened in December 2023.

“It is my prayer and hope that we [UCI] don’t get that budget cut…otherwise it [the budget cut] is going to impact negatively in terms of us functionalizing this centre and that will not be in the interest of our population,” Dr Orem told the gathering.

Dr. Rosemary Byanyima, Executive Director of Mulago National Hospital, stated that the situation in Mulago is concerning because there is no room for expansion and that it is overburdened.

“At Mulago UCI, the majority of the patients from upcountry are treated as outpatients and many have no place to reside, and if there is a centre nearer, it will be better for them and also they will be diagnosed earlier and the outcome of the treatment will be better,” Dr Byanyima said.

She added: “You find that when they are diagnosed from the regional referrals and referred to UCI Mulago, they have to start looking for resources to come for treatment and you find that this is quite expensive, and having a centre like this will save them.”

Cry for more land, resources

According to Dr. Oryem, the Gulu Regional Cancer Institute is expected to handle the large patient load that previously clogged the UCI centre at Mulago Hospital in Kampala.

“If you look at the patient load that we have in Kampala now, 85 per cent of the patients come from upcountry. That means only 15 per cent are residents around Kampala.

Also read:Dr Erizali Opio: Former Uganda Cranes Doctor passes on aged 83

“And if you look at the recent survey result we did to look at cancer in the whole country, in terms of numbers, Northern Uganda is 2nd to central in terms of number [of patient load] so that means the burden here is very high.”

The majority of these are patients battling cervix and prostate cancer.

After completing phase one of the regional outlet, management was forced to begin offering services to patients in order to not only provide partial relief to the UCI facility in Kampala, but also to address the patient load in Northern Uganda.

“We opened this centre and [discovered that] there are some patients who were diagnosed a long time ago but they are not attending [or getting treatment] anywhere but now because the centre is here they are now coming. That means the presence of a facility is actually a very important enabler of services and care,” Dr Oryem revealed.

Mr. Amos Obote, the head of the Gulu Centre, revealed that they had regionalstered nearly 400 patients since December of last year.

“From July to December 2023, we have attended to 377 clients, out of the 377, over 222 are cancer patients those with confirmed diagnoses, so we have a skeleton team of about 19 staff and therefore we need to have the number of staff boosted such that we can optimally perform,” Mr Obote said.

Also read: Power crisis hits Northern Uganda regional cancer institute

The UCI management also requires at least 6.5 acres in addition to the currently available 4 acres on which the shs40 billion facility is located.

“The city supports this project by giving us land although is not enough, we have requested for more land for expansion, the phase 2 project that we want to construct does not have enough land though the funder, the government of Uganda has pledged full support for this project to complete all the phases,” Prof Bazeyo said.

Background

The journey to establish the Northern Regional Cancer Centre began in 2017, when the UCI board of directors wrote to the administration of Koro sub-county in Omoro district (then Gulu district) requesting land.

However, for about five years, there was a political squabble over the facility’s location, which delayed the start of construction, according to previous reports from this publication.

However, construction of the centre began with its official launch in 2021.

Following the death of Jacob Oulanyah, the former Speaker of Parliament, Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja proposed that the centre be named after him, a proposal that was approved by Northern Uganda’s local government councils in 2022.

Oulanyah had advocated for the establishment of this centre. He died in America in 2022 after suffering from late-stage cancer and organ failure.

Funding

The new centre is currently being built on a 4-acre plot of land with government funds and interest-free financing from the Republic of Austria worth Euro 10 million (approximately 40 billion).

The construction began in 2021, with Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja launching it.