Construction of Staff Houses for Entebbe Hospital Starts

The construction of housing units for Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital workers has started.

The units will accommodate health workers at the Entebbe Isolation Centre at Manyago that is currently under construction.

Construction of the staff quarters was awarded to Mould House Engineering Ltd, a Chinese company at 1.5 Billion Shillings.

Eng. George Otim, the Commissioner of Health Infrastructure at the Ministry of Health, says that there are plans to construct more housing units for health workers at the hospital in the future.

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Muhammad Mubiru, the Principal Hospital Administrator at Entebbe Hospital, says that 20 health workers will be accommodated in the units. He adds that the construction of the units is timely since the lack of accommodation poses a challenge to their performance.

He explains that some medical workers take advantage of the accommodation problem to report late for work.

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Some of the health workers who spoke on condition of anonymity say that they spend high costs on renting and transport to and from work. The workers reside in Nansana, Kajjansi and Katabi Town Council. Accommodation within Entebbe municipality and surrounding areas costs 200,000 to 350,000 for self-contained single rooms.

A nurse says that on some occasions when she doesn’t have the money she walks to work.

"The hospital does not have a staff shuttle so those off duty have to find our way to or from the hospital," a medic says.  

According to experts, the chronic shortage of housing is having severe consequences on medical service delivery in Uganda. Many Ugandans continue to miss out on timely medical services, because the medical workers responsible for that live far away from the hospitals and medical centres.