Chinese-donated hospital improves healthcare in Uganda

Uganda’s healthcare system is improving thanks to hospital and medical equipment donated to the country by China.

This China-Uganda Friendship Hospital, donated by the Chinese government, was built in 2012 to provide specialized free treatments for locals, including caesarean.

“I got a successful operation, my baby is okay and I am even doing well”, mother of a newborn, Caroline Nanyonjo.

Doctors say they have managed to reduce maternal deaths at the facility by 99 percent.

“We are able to operate over 7,000 [patients], deliver over 22,000 mothers [annually] and in so doing we are able to have over 99.7 percent of them going back home alive and better than they came in,” said Emmanuel Batiibwe, director of the hospital.

But despite been upgraded to a referral center, the hospital’s equipment is still insufficient to cope with increasing demands.

“Some of this equipment has broken down. We need to replace it, to improve our tower for laparoscopy, we have to improve on our diagnostic centers, X-rays imaging, MRI. We want to have renal dialysis which has been replaced. We don’t have it. So that we also want to ensure that we have cardial services”, Batiibwe added.

To address this, China has recently donated supplies and medicines worth $70,000 to the Ugandan ministry of health.

Reuters