The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Gulu, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | St Mary’s Hospital Lacor, one of the largest non-profit hospitals in Northern Uganda, is grappling with a staggering funding deficit of 15.5 billion shillings, threatening its ability to provide affordable and quality medical services to thousands of patients.
The hospital, under the administration of the Gulu Archdiocese, has, over the years, been relying largely on donor support to fund health care services to patients across Northern Uganda and refugees from South Sudan.
However, according to the hospital administrators, funding shortfalls, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the suspension of USAID health funding to the Ministry of Health, have left the hospital on its knees.
Dr. Dominique Corti, the president of Corti Foundation, an organization that raises funds to provide financial support for the hospital, said the health facility is still reeling from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Corti noted that the 15.5 billion shillings funding deficit has been a major challenge for the hospital in the last two to three years, greatly threatening the subsidy the facility provides for patients’ health care and the payment of staff salaries.
She said the foundation is currently struggling to convince donors to support the hospital budget and fill in the 15.5 billion shillings funding deficit amidst donor cuts in funding from major international organizations.
Dr. Corti noted that amidst the financial crisis, the hospital has now opted to invest in evolution plans that, among others, include the improvement of financial controls at the facility.
This, she said, would entail putting in place new administration software that helps to precisely monitor the financial inflows and outflows at the hospital. According to her, through the initiatives, in the last nine months alone, the hospital was able to save about 600 million shillings on food purchases.
Dr. Corti made the remarks on Saturday during the hospital’s annual stakeholders meeting held under the theme “Maintaining the hospital mission amidst increasing economic strain, changing health care landscape, and disease patterns.
Dr. Martin Ogwang, St Mary’s Hospital Lacor Institutional Director, revealed that amidst the dwindling funding, the government has failed to increase the budget allocation to the hospital for the Primary Health Care (PHC) budget.
Dr. Ogwang notes that the hospital receives quarterly 58 million shillings from the government, translating to about 19.3 million shillings monthly to fund the primary health care activities despite an overwhelming number of patients flocking to the facility. The annual PHC budget for Lacor Hospital was cut down from 600 million shillings to 230 million shillings in 2019 by the Ministry of Health.
He appealed to the government to increase the hospital’s primary health care budget to enable the facility to smoothly run its health services operation, including the purchase of essential drugs for patients.
According to the hospital’s annual revenue report for the 2023/24 financial year, donor funding accounted for 15.5 billion shillings of the hospital’s budget, while fees collected at the hospital contributed to 9.6 billion shillings.
Meanwhile, government grants were sh1.7 billion, and local revenue contributed sh941 million.
However, out of the revenue, the hospital spent up to 12.2 billion shillings in salaries and 8 billion shillings in medical items and services, one of the core areas at the facility.
Dr. Ogwang noted that with the revenue highlight, the hospital wouldn’t be in a position to operate without donor funding and challenged stakeholders and the government to consider funding the facility.
For instance, out of the funding the facility receives, 94 percent of it subsidizes the medical treatment for children, 66 percent for adults who receive treatment at the facility, and 89 percent for the two peripheral health facilities in Opit and Pabbo.
“On average, somebody is paying 75 percent of the money that we use in running the hospital; we only get the rest from us here locally. That is what we use here, on average, 25 percent,” said Dr. Ogwang.
According to the hospital’s records, there were a total of 159,262 outpatient contacts at the hospital in the financial year 2023/24.
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