According to the Embattled Mulago Hospital Executive Director, Dr Naterana Byarugaba, he is proud of the changes made at the hospital for the last 11 years.
As the investigation is going on in the country into allegations of abuse of office, embezzlement, causing financial loss and fraudulent, false accounting by the State House Health Monitoring Unit, Dr Beterana was suspended from office and therefore ordered to hand over to his deputy.
Today, Dr Baterana handed over his office to his deputy Dr Rosemary Byanyima during a function in Mulago.
Speaking during the handover, he stated that during the 11 years in which he served as the hospital Executive Director, the national referral hospital achieved a lot.
This is the first oxygen plant in Uganda since independence which was established in 2012 under my leadership. Before that, we imported oxygen from Kenya and were dependent on industrial oxygen,” Dr Baterana boasted.
He noted that oxygen plants were developed for Kawempe and Kiruddu hospitals.
The embattled Mulago Executive Director said that dialysis was made simple under his leadership. The country boasts over 60 dialysis machines at Mulago, Kiruddu and four specialized services.
Dr Baterana stated that he supervised the construction of the housing unit for the first time for Mulago hospital staff and mainly in the pipeline.
They stated that we planned first, and then the process of construction started; this hospital is specialized for women with 453 beds capacity and 11 operating theatres. They planned this hospital first as a maternal unit but later changed the plan and made it a hospital. We operationalized Kawempe, Kiruddu and Mulago as independent hospitals while using the small budget of Mulago, and we didn’t cause any health crisis in this country.”
According to Dr Baterana, management fought for Mulago’s land during his tenure, which he said was being threatened by grabbers.
He further mentioned the ongoing renovation work for Mulago, in which they increased the number of Intensive Care units and high dependency unit beds.
Dr Baterana said some challenges would continue delaying proper service delivery at the national referral hospital despite the achievements.
He stated that the budget of Mulago hospital was small, but the requirement was more because half of the budget goes into salaries and another big percentage for pension and gratuity.
He was pressured there to increase the budget and increase salaries for health workers to assure they are satisfied with what they earn.
Dr Baterana stated that there is a need to put in place a law that guarantees that health workers in government hospitals do not work in private facilities to ensure there is no double loyalty.
She further stated that “I request to all the team to work properly.”
