CoRSU opens new facility to ease pressure in public orthopedic departments

Entebbe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | CoRSU rehabilitation hospital has opened a new 1.8million Euro facility that is set to double the cases handled at the facility annually. Currently, the hospital handles 29,000 patients in its outpatient department of which 12,000 are offered rehabilitation services.

Speaking to URN shortly after the launch, Dr Moses Muhumuza, the Medical Director revealed that the new building has been fitted with not only six operating theatres but also a workshop that has already started fabricating assistive devices for those with various disabilities.

Largely funded by donors, CoRSU offers services ranging from physical rehabilitation, physiotherapy, plastic surgery, and speech and language therapy with 70% of the patients being children.

According to Muhumuza, children aged five and below access care free of charge. The vision of CoRSU is that people with disability in Uganda are able to access rehabilitation services that improve their quality of life.

However, while the facility was initially set up for children, the huge need for such services in the country among adults led to the opening of the adult wing who currently account for 30%. These are required to pay for the service.

Hellen Grace Asamo, the State Minister for Disability Affairs called for funding to subsidize services for adults too saying that people with disability are often too poor to afford basic rehabilitative services, and yet orthopedic departments in the free government facilities are run down.

Countrywide, she says more than seven million people are living with a form of disability but only a few can afford or access assistive devices. She gives an example of her crutches revealing that she failed to get a pair that matched her weight in the country and resorted to importing.

Asamo notes that this is not the only challenge as specialists such as orthopedic and plastic surgeons are also hard to find in Uganda with a few available concentrating at national referral hospitals.

CoRSU employs eighteen such specialists but Muhumuza says keeping them is very costly and it partly explains why their adult services are quite pricey. He calls for government intervention to second some specialists to work at the facility considering that they have the equipment but lack enough personnel to run them.

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