The Executive Director of Butabika National Referral Hospital, Dr Juliet Nakku, has revealed that mental health cases in Uganda have risen by 71% over the last four years, with children accounting for nearly a quarter of this increase.
Dr Nakku made the disclosure while appearing before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to respond to queries from the December 2025 Auditor General’s report.
“According to the report 2025, it showed that countrywide mental health cases have gone up by 70% since 2021-22. And the proportion of young people, adolescents, children and adolescents with mental health problems is almost a quarter of those, 24%. So those numbers are huge,” Dr Nakku said.
Her revelation sparked concern among MPs. Asuman Basalirwa (Bugiri Municipality) questioned what could be causing the surge among children.
“You say 70% cases increment in the country, maybe perhaps we want to understand what could really be the causes, especially when you talk about young people, we have children. Maybe at this point in time, we begin to get to know how to begin, you know, planning and managing them,” Basalirwa said.
Gorreth Namugga, Vice Chairperson of PAC, also expressed worry over the rising trend.
“These escalating levels of mental illness in children, 22.9% in children is simply too high. What are the causes in children and how do you advise us as parents? What should we do? Because 22% is simply too high,” she said.
Dr Nakku added that despite strides in improving mental health services at Butabika Hospital, staffing and resources remain insufficient to meet the growing demand.
“The doctor patient ratio is very high. Until recently, we had only 10, but since the beginning of this financial year, we had an extra four doctors, psychiatrists, specialists, so we have 14 psychiatrists for a population of 1000 is a drop in the ocean. Ideally, we should have one doctor to at least 30 patients, which we don’t yet enjoy,” Dr Nakku said, adding that “the current ratio is almost 1: 100, which is really huge for psychiatry.”
Dr. Nakku went to disclose that the plight isn’t any different with nurses saying, “the nurse patient ratio right now also is huge. We should have at least one nurse to every 10 to 15 patients at the max. But we have one to 50, one to 60, which is very high for nothing because it’s very nothing is very intensive in mental health.”
She also decried the high bed occupancy rate noting that although Butabika’s bed capacity is to a tune of 550 beds, on average, there are 1000-1200 patients at the facility.
“The occupancy rate has been very, very high. Our official bed capacity, official bed capacity is 550 beds. However, our occupancy rate has been up to 230 which means we have a lot of cases that requires that we find ways of getting people out of the hospital to other places where they can get care or increase the staffing. You will find 1000 to 1200 patients plus sometimes 1400 patients in the hospital admitted,” Dr. Nakku explained.
