Adjumani General Hospital has officially opened a new Intensive Care Unit (ICU) facility worth UGX 1.8 billion, which will help reduce congestion in the Outpatients Department (OPD) at the health facility located in the northern region of Uganda.
While speaking to our reporter on Tuesday, June 18, 2024, the Adjumani District Health Officer (DHO), Dr. Dominic Drametu, said that the newly opened ICU will help reduce congestion at the OPD.
“With the ICU in use, it will reduce the congestion in OPD because initially, all new patients were being seen in OPD. The OPD will see the non-serious cases while the emergencies will be seen in the ICU because one wing is the accident and emergency unit, where the severe cases will be handled while simpler cases will be attended to in the OPD. We expect the congestion to reduce due to the use of the ICU,” Dr. Drametu said.
Dr. Drametu added that they are, however, facing the challenge of inadequate rooms in some wards, like maternity and children’s wards, where they have floor cases.
“Adjumani Hospital was constructed as a 100-bed hospital, but now we have more than 300–350 inpatients on average. Due to the limited space, we cannot accommodate more than what the rooms can accommodate, so you may find some patients sleeping on the floor. We have asked the ministry to support us in expanding some of our wards, like maternity, OPD, and children’s wards,” he added.
Dr. Drametu further said that the hospital is looking for resources to purchase critical equipment for the ICU, like ventilators.
“The UGX 1.8 billion was used to buy the basic equipment; therefore, we are engaging the government and partners in order to buy the equipment like ventilators required for the smooth running of the ICU and as a high dependency unit,” he said.
The facility, funded by the Development Response to Displacement Impacts Project (DRDIP) and implemented by the Office of the Prime Minister, features 14 intensive care beds, surgical and emergency rooms, and examination areas. It will serve both nationals and refugees. It was recently ranked as one of the high-volume but best-operating general hospitals under the Ministry of Health.
