KIRA HEALTH III ELEVATED TO A SUPER HEALTH CENTRE IV

Facility Construction kicks off to meet standard

The struggle for improving Health service delivery in Kira Municipality has started showing some lights following the elevation of Kira Health Centre III to a Super Health Centre IV and kick off of the facility construction to meet the required standards. To be with three theatres, a private wing, women’s wing, and pediatric intensive care unit, the facility will serve a total population of over half a million people from within the Municipality and the neighborhood.

Dr. Ivan Nyenje, a Senior Medical Officer (the Only Medical Doctor in Kira Municipality) overseeing Kira Health Facilities says that a Super Health Centre IV is equivalent in everything to a Hospital and the only difference is the name.

His Worship the Mayor Julius Mutebi Nsubuga in his submission on the ground breaking function of the facility construction explained to the stakeholders how it wasn’t easy to convince District and Ministry of Health officials to elevate the facility to that level.

“in my engagement with the Wakiso district Chairperson my demand was for a referral Hospital given our population but when he called on the CAO to join our engagement for advise I was told that it is only a district which can be given a Hospital and looking at the geographical boundaries Wakiso district’s Hospital could not be located in Kira and so everything became complicated. But I did not give up. I requested the CAO to at least give us a Doctor to help at Kira Health Centre and they did so! I went on to engage the Ministry of health until 2019 when we got a chance to host the World Health Day and I requested the Minister of Health Dr. Jane Ruthy Acenge and the Country representative of the World Health Organization to at least visit the facility which I was asking them to elevate to the a hospital level and they accepted to move around, so the situation and realized the need and later on I was told that the best they could do was to elevate us to a supper health IV and they were to give it a priority and, its grate to see that today we are here laying the ground for the kickoff of the construction in order to bring the services closer to our people” said Mutebi.

He also went on to thank the development partners such as Rotary International, Christ Embassy Church among others who donated an ambulance to the facility and have been providing us with medical assortments with much focus on expectant mothers.

The Municipal Town Clerk represented by his Deputy Mr. Geoffrey Muganga appreciated different stakeholders for their contribution towards health service delivery.  “Looking at the price of land we cannot go without thanking the Kisosonkole family who gave us this land currently worth billions of money that without this land even the central government would not give us funds for such developments”!

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He added that elevation of the facility to that level will held to address on so many medical challenges the Municipality has been experiencing. “Many people may be due to ignorance have been visiting our facilities for services when their conditions are beyond what can be handled at that level and our health workers have been referring them to either Mulago or other private Hospitals which can handle such complicated cases but unfortunately such people could leave complaining that they haven’t been worked on, giving us a negative image. But since this facility after completion will have theatres handling possible surgeries many cases will be handled there and then saving lives of our people and also saving them from the would be expenses. Our major task as administrators is to ensure that we recruit competent staff to provide the services and also not forgetting that Staff motivation is key to attracting qualified staff to these facilities, we are also going to look into the matter of availability of accommodation in the vicinity of the institution as one of the avenues to counter understaffing, absenteeism and late coming”.  

Engineer Peter Wafula who represented the permanent Secretary Ministry of Health said that the project of facility construction is to take place in phases and in phase one the Ministry sent over 700 million shillings for the startup and in this very financial year the same or more amount is to be released and another batch in the next financial year for completion.

Profile of Kira Health Centre

Built on the land donated by Kisosonkole family (Kabaka’s maternal family), Kira Health Centre started as a community dispensary and was officially opened in 1999 by the former Vice president Dr. Samson Kiseka. As the population of the area increased the facility became so busy and elevated to different levels and by the time Kira became a Municipality the facility was at a Health Centre III level working on over 4000 people monthly including handling over 1,000 antenatal cases and over 100 deliveries.

General status of Health   Facilities in Kira

The social and economic impacts of improved health services on the individual, family, and the country as a whole have significant multiplier impact on community development and quality of life of its people.  Vision 20140 aims at production of a healthy and productive population to contribute to the socio- economic growth of the country through provision of quality, accessible and affordable health care to all. 

Agenda 2013, framed health and wellbeing as outcomes and foundations of social inclusion, poverty reduction and environmental protection. From a health perspective, development can only be regarded sustainable when resources are managed by and for all individuals in a way that supports the health and wellbeing of present and future generations.  

The NDP 11 targets to increase the percentage of population that lies within 5 KM distance to health facilities from 72% (2013) to 85%. By 2020. Currently Kira Municipality has a total of seventeen (17) health facilities whereby the only three hospitals available are private, the Municipality has not been with any Health Centre IV and this is going to be the first one at that level, only 22.2% of Health Centre III were public and only three out of the five Health Centre II were public.  Suffice to say, the health facilities in the municipality were inequitably distributed, with Bweyogere Division having 7 facilities, Namugongo Division 6 and Kira Division 4. Furthermore, Bweyogerere Division had two (2) public health facilities, Kira had two and Kireka which has the highest population and density had only one public health centre II. According to the NPHC 2014 Report, 20.7% of the population in Kira Municipality resided

5KMs and above to nearest public health facilities. The corresponding proportion for Namugongo Division was 27.4%, Kira Division and Bweyogerere Division were 18.6% and 12.3% respectively.

Healthcare facilities in the municipality have a total of 570 beds, 70% of these were in public facilities. In addition, the municipality has approximately 150 licensed clinics and 80 drug shops which contribute to the delivery of health services in the municipality, although municipal authorities admitted that the number could be higher than those licensed. It was these, according to findings of the socio- economic study, that most residents of the municipality turn to for treatment. Private clinics were the preferred option for treatment to 85% of respondents compared to 53.5% that utilize health centers.  

Although the municipality has registered improved performance based on a number of health indicators, there is still a serious gap in geographical access and delivery of quality health services caused by mismatch between health infrastructure development and capacity to deliver the needed services arising from inadequate staffing, drugs, medical supplies equipment, staff housing, lack of emergency services and weak laws and regulation.

The physical and sanitary conditions of many of the existing health facilities in the municipality constitute a risk for both the patients and the medical staff. These gaps and variations have revealed inefficiency in the ability of the health sector in the municipality to   deliver efficient and effective health services.

Basing on the National Health Facility Standards Kira Municipality with the population of 470000 people has a demand of 3 more health Centre IVs each working on 1000000 people,  more 7 Health Centre III each working on   20,000   people and a deficit of  58  Health center II to serve the community efficiently  

In other words there is glaring need for more health facilities for improved service delivery plus need to improve upon the distribution of the services thus improve upon access and quality of service.