Members of Parliament on the Public Accounts Committee-PAC are alarmed by the overwhelming numbers of patients, poor state, and quality of services delivered at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital.
The legislators were in the hospital on Monday and Tuesday to follow up on some of the issues raised in the Auditor General’s Report.
The MPs established that there were congested wards with some patients sharing beds. According to Sarah Opendi, the Tororo Woman MP who led the delegation, the committee was disappointed with the state of affairs at the hospital. She cited the lack of blood for transfusing patients and overcrowding resulting from limited space.
Opendi also revealed that they found five children sharing a single bed in the children's ward. They were also concerned about the drug stockouts at the regional referral hospital.
The legislators noted that although the facility was supposed to receive drugs worth Shillings 3.6billion in the previous financial year, it only received half the supply, forcing patients to buy medicine from private facilities.
The Lutsetshe County MP Isaac Modoi, said the regional hospital, which is supposed to deal with complicated conditions is not doing its job as expected.
Dr Emmanuel Tugainayo, the Director of Mbale Regional Referral Hospital attributed the overwhelming number of patients to the increasing cases of malaria.
He is, however, optimistic that the problem will be resolved once the surgical complex is completed. Dr Tugainayo also explained that they are still engaging the National Medical Stores to find out why they undersupplied them with drugs.
He also revealed the regional referral hospital lacks essential equipment like a CT Scan, MRI unit, and adequate oxygen plant to solve the problem of oxygen.
