The government of Uganda is engaging other East African Community members to consider joint procurement of health supplies so as to benefit from economies of scale.
This was disclosed by Dr Rony Bahatungire, commissioner of Health Services at the ministry of Health, at Protea hotel, Kampala on October 28, 2025. He was presenting the official status of the health sector and making clarifications on issues affecting the general public at the Uganda National NGO Forum National Dissemination Workshop 2025.
The dissemination was on a five-year research study conducted by the Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD), titled ‘Health Financing Dynamcs in the Wake of Dwindling Donor Funding in Uganda’.
The event also collected a lot of input from several stakeholders in attendance. Bahatungire hailed the adoption of electronic medical systems for having greatly reduced the pilferage of supplies in the sector.
He said the sector was now applying an integrated healthcare model to achieve more efficiency. He, however, called for integration beyond the health sector so as to achieve more efficiency and productivity in both the public and private sectors.
He also disclosed that plans are underway to turn all health centres IV into ‘community hospitals’ providing wider and deeper services. Reacting to a concern of all national referral hospitals being in Kampala, Bahatungire said in a few years, Mbale, Gulu and Mbarara will have national referral hospitals.
Currently, Uganda has five national referral hospitals; namely Mulago, Kawempe, Kiruddu, Butabika and Mulago Specialized Women and Neonatal hospital. The commissioner also reported that the absorption of all health personnel rendered jobless by the recent USA presidential directives is at advanced stages.
“With the support of the ministry of Finance for the required extra funding, we are already validating the personnel for potential regularization into the official health service sector,” he assured.
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