The Executive Director of Kawempe National Referral Hospital, Dr. Emmanuel Byaruhanga Kayogoza, has cautioned that any move by government to downgrade the facility to a district hospital would undermine Uganda’s healthcare system.
Dr. Byaruhanga made the remarks while appearing before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, which was reviewing the 2024/25 Auditor General’s report.
“I have also heard about that in the news. I don’t have any official communication about that. I would really not comment about that,” he said.
He, however, warned that such a decision would be regressive.
“But it would be going steps backward because you need national referral hospitals in Uganda, which are specialised in certain areas, where the general hospitals can refer, where the regional referral hospitals can refer to these national referral hospitals,” Dr. Byaruhanga explained.
Instead of downgrading Kawempe Hospital, he proposed strengthening lower-level health facilities to ease pressure on the referral centre.
He specifically called for the upgrade of health centres in Kisenyi and Kawala so they can handle more cases currently flooding Kawempe.
“If I was asked for advice, the solution is to build general hospitals to support these national referral hospitals. The biggest problem, for example, for Kawempe, we don’t have general hospitals supporting the national referral hospitals. Remember, Kawala is Health Centre IV, Kisenyi is Health Centre IV, these should be big hospitals, the volume of work they do is for, actually, almost three referral hospitals,” Dr. Byaruhanga said.
Dr. Byaruhanga was responding to a question from Tororo South MP Fredrick Angura, who sought his views on reports that President Museveni had proposed downgrading both Kawempe and Kiruddu hospitals to district level.
The proposal reportedly followed complaints from residents living near the two hospitals, who said they were not receiving general medical services from the specialised facilities.
Despite the reports, Dr. Byaruhanga maintained that he had not received any official communication regarding the proposed changes.
During his Parish Development Model tours in Kampala in July 2025, President Museveni expressed dissatisfaction with the Ministry of Health’s decision to upgrade Kawempe and Kiruddu hospitals to national referral status.
Dr. Byaruhanga argued that the move contradicts the original purpose of the facilities, which was to decongest Mulago National Referral Hospital and serve surrounding communities.
He revealed that Kawempe Hospital charges Shs1 million per week for ICU services, with most patients staying only a few days, while some private facilities charge over Shs2.5 million and refer patients unable to pay to Kawempe without prior notice.
This prompted Gorreth Namugga, the Vice Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee, to call for regulation of charges in private health facilities.
“We know we operate a free market economy, but also, it is in the interest of Government to somehow regulate the private sector, because a bed of Shs2.5 Million every day, where can somebody get that money? So, much as they are in private business, but there must be somebody to protect Ugandans from extortion? We know it is their private businesses, Shs2.5 Million is a lot of money. So, somebody fails to pay the other side, then they bring you this side for free,” Namugga said.
