Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital is grappling with an overwhelming surge in Mpox cases, with hospital administrators warning of dire conditions due to limited resources and inadequate government support.
The hospital’s Acting Director, Dr. Deus Twesigye, has raised concerns that patients are being mismanaged due to a lack of essential medical supplies, a strained workforce, and an overstretched isolation unit.
While appearing before Parliament’s Health Committee to discuss the hospital’s 2025/26 Ministerial Policy Statement, Dr. Twesigye revealed that the government has only supplied gauze and iodine for Mpox treatment.
Meanwhile, the isolation unit designed to accommodate 28 patients has exceeded capacity, forcing new admissions into tents and even under trees.
“We have many patients of M-pox. We have an isolation unit which has a bed capacity of 28, and yesterday’s report showed we had 29 patients. We have started admitting under the tent,” said Dr. Twesigye.
Despite the growing crisis, he noted that the Ministry of Health has not responded with the necessary support, leaving patients to cater for their own meals.
“At the beginning, we had hoped that the ministry would swiftly react, probably they come and hear us. I don’t know how my brother from Entebbe does it. At the beginning, we made an attempt of feeding these people, but eventually, we failed, and today, they are feeding themselves,” he added.
The situation is further exacerbated by a critical shortage of medical personnel. According to Dr. Twesigye, the hospital only has one doctor attending to Mpox patients, while the rest of the caregivers are nurses and volunteers.
“I feel we are mismanaging these patients, and the numbers are increasing. We are unlucky that we got gauze, we got iodine, and grafts from the National Medical Store, but there is not any other here. On top of that, we have only volunteers caring for those patients. We have one doctor, and the rest are nurses,” he explained.
Beyond the immediate crisis, hospital administrators are also calling for Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital to be elevated to a higher status, similar to Mulago National Referral Hospital.
They argue that the facility provides super-specialized services but remains constrained by its classification as a regional referral hospital, limiting its access to critical medical supplies.
“So probably one day, somebody should think of a name we can give to Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital. If it cannot be a national referral hospital, let it maybe be called a special regional referral hospital because when you go there, you’ll find that it offers a duplicate of what is being offered at our national referral hospital. Yet we cannot access some commodities from National Medical Stores by the status that we are having,” Dr. Twesigye remarked.
With Mpox cases on the rise and resources running thin, Mbarara Hospital’s leadership is urging Parliament and the Ministry of Health to take immediate action before the situation worsens further.
