Residents of Entebbe Municipality and neighboring areas will regain access to Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital next month when it re-opens to the public.
The hospital closed the outpatient, dental, optical, maternal and child care departments in March last year, after shifting to focus on the effective management of COVID-19 patients.
The hospital serves a population of over one million people from within Entebbe municipality, Katabi Town council, Buvuma and Kalangala districts.
According to Muhammad Mubiru the Principal Administrator Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital, management is planning to re-open the hospital to the public on April 1.
He explains that the re-opening shall be done in a phased manner, since the hospital it will also continue handling Covid-19 cases and will only resume full operations at the completion of the renovation works at the National Isolation Centre next month.
Once the centre is completed, Mubiru noted that they will transfer all Covid-19 cases to the isolation centre.
The closure of Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital has strained service delivery at Katabi and Kigungu health centres as well as Kiruddu and Kawempe national referral hospitals, which are over 30km away from the municipality.
The hospital is currently preparing for a phased resumption of its operations through repairs on damaged installations such as hand washing basins, toilet cisterns and floaters and replacing beds among others.
However, the "Only anti-rabies, maternal and child health services will be available because the hospital will still be handling COVID-19 patients, though in a different block.
