Members of Parliament sitting in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) were left in shock after it emerged that Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital does not have a single delivery bed. Officials from the hospital, led by Dr John Bosco Nsubuga, the Acting Director, and Richard Tumwesigye, the Senior Hospital Administrator, appeared before the committee on Tuesday, 28 May 2024 to respond to queries raised in the Auditor General’s report for the financial year ended 30 June 2023. The committee Deputy Chairperson, Gorreth Namugga, and other MPs expressed shock at the disclosure by the Auditor General that a hospital in an urban part of the country did not have a delivery bed for mothers and only two incubators for premature babies.
The Auditor General noted that the maternity ward at Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital operates without delivery beds with the surgical recovery bed improvised to deliver an average of 20 children a day. “The accounting officer explained that whereas Entebbe Maternity wing delivers an average of 650 women each month, which is equivalent to 4,287 deliveries per year, it is grossly underfunded with a ceiling of approximately Shs200 million. This amount is inadequate to procure new or additional medical equipment, or even repair,” the Auditor General noted in his report.
Namugga, wondered how mothers were delivering without the beds. She also blamed women working in the facility for their failure to influence policy and ensure the facility got a deliv.