By Joshua Nahamya
Mbarara City
Following the persistent over-crowding of the neonatal intensive care unit [NICU] at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital [MRRH], the World Bank in partnership with the Ministry of Health has launched the construction of a modern facility to house a 100-bed capacity.
During a site meeting on Friday, Dr. Deus Twesigye, Acting Director and Senior Consultant General Surgeon MRRH confirmed that the modern NICU undergoing construction at the regional facility is valued at $1.9 million (about Shs7.12 bln).
The construction is expected to be completed in six months by GESES Uganda Limited as the facility is to be commissioned by April 2025.
“As a hospital director, I am delighted to receive these two structures. The NICU itself is state of the art in its nature and East Africa we have been told that we are the ones to get the best of its quality” It has 100 bed capacity and it comes with theatres and other accessories,” Twesigye noted
He also reported that a call and dispatch center at a cost of Shs 2.8bln is concurrently being constructed near the emergency ward by Wiljon Construction Company Ltd.
“This call and dispatch centre comes at a time when we need it. We have had an isolation unit it is already unique with us, recently we launched the emergency operation centre [EOC] which is also unique for this region, we are also in control of the emergency ambulance services in this region, so when the dispatch and call centre comes here with all it takes to man it, automatically we shall progress,” Dr. Twesigye said
State of the art Call and dispatch centre being constructed at MRRH.
The NICU under construction with a grant from the World Bank is sited on four floors, which makes Mbarara Hospital the first out of the 17 regional referral facilities across the country to have a NICU that will attract a huge section of the populace not only the western region but to solve the perinatal deaths in the whole country.
“We do believe that the day it gets finished, it will decongest our existing paediatric ward and it will also attract specialised services as well as being a referral centre beyond our normal catchment area which has been the 12 districts and the city,” Twesigye said
However, the hospital officials headed by the Acting hospital Director got frustrated with the Wiljon Construction Company Ltd which has delayed completing the call and dispatch center facility. They further argued that the contractor is doing shoddy work contrary to what is provided in the bills of quantities.
“We are behind the schedule this work was supposed to be completed last year in December but they hadn’t and they were added two more months but still you can see how lazy they are they are not bothered at all. And not once or twice the engineer is ever not on site.” Twesigye said
James Mugume, Board chairman MRRH commended the good work done at the NICU construction site but on the other hand, threatened to terminate the contract of Wiljon Construction Company Ltd if the contractor did not finish up in time.
“I am happy with the progress observed on the NICU building but on the other side of the call dispatch centre this is like my third time we note the shoddy work here and we are not going to keep coming here to complain about the substandard work every month. We rather terminate the contract and look for another contractor to finish up the work,” Mugume said
Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital.
He added, “The site engineer is not even providing us with a report. We cannot continue wasting time and money for the Ministry of Health perhaps from this meeting we should be able to come out with a solution”.
“All said and done, the minister of health is funding this project so if we find the work is not properly done, I propose that let the contractor be stopped and we get another contractor to finish up the work” Let the message go to the ministry of health that for us as the hospital users in the region we are not happy with the contractor,” Mugume noted
“During the next meeting if there is no site report I will recommend termination of the contract and this should be minuted.” He added
Daniel Musana, the professional consultant in charge of the two sites at the referral also warned that the contractor should not be paid if he continues doing substandard work at the call and dispatch center building.
“It is very unfortunate that the users of this facility are not happy with what is happening here and we are not going to encourage any substandard work. We noted that the windows for example do not match the specifications we approved in the BOQs and good enough we still have the samples so we advise you to go and use the quality material on site or else you risk not getting paid for the phase for the work get completed,” Musana explained.
He also highlighted the challenge of turnaround of personnel which has delayed the completion of the call and dispatch centre in time thus advising the contractor to improve.
“We were very disappointed that we went to the site and there was no site engineer yet you knew that we had the site meeting but you took it upon yourself not to attend the site meeting. Now who do you expect to man your site? Because the person whom we found on site could not answer any of the questions yet we had a number of questions which we wanted to ask but there was no one. You should echo this to your directors because we need to see your stocks being pulled up on this site,” Musana said
He also challenged Wilson Construction Company Ltd directors to improve the health and sanitation of the workers together with the people who often visit the site.
“We went upstairs and people were plastering so many meters above the platform without any protection gear even the visitors themselves could not get enough PPUs so a lot needs to be done to protect the people’s lives moreover being a hospital site,” Musana said
He explained that “If the donor came and started hearing issues of health and safety can cause the closure of the site and I wouldn’t want us to get there”.
“We are here to ensure that Ugandans perform and learn how to perform. So my appeal is that let this be the last time we are hear about these nasty stories on site,” Musana said
He also warned the Wiljon Construction Company Ltd contractor to change if not they risk their company being blacklisted.
“This is disappointing, for a whole month you don’t have a report. Do you want us to record in the minutes that the contractor had no report? And you think this will ogre well with your reputation?
“You see this bold head of mine has not developed for nothing, it has gone through so many contracts of different nature and unfortunately I have been through a contract where there was termination and that is the worst thing on earth because you pay for the liquidated damages then we terminate your contract and also you lose relationships. It is a nasty incident and we wouldn’t want to get there and that’s why we are appealing to you to perform” So please Mr Mugoya I appeal to you to try as much as possible to style up because you are almost finishing,” Musana explained.
He again challenged the contractor to submit all the samples of the materials to be verified before proceeding with the construction work.
“We appeal to you to submit all your samples for approval or denial because we shall not let you do substandard works here because as consultants we are paid to make sure that we supervise you to ensure quality work is done. For example, these iron sheets need to be verified because it looks like they are not the gauge 26 we agreed to be used as per the BOQs” even the water pipes were not approved.” Musana noted
The resident city commissioner [RCC] Mbarara City South, Robert Kanusu embraced the new buildings in the referral hospital that will modify Mbarara to be referred to as a medical city.
“The debate is on because every city has its own niche that describes it best like you hear about Fort Portal being a tourism city, Jinja as an industrial city, Kampala as a metropolitan city so Mbarara should be classified a medical destination city in Uganda,” Kanusu said
He added that Mbarara Hospital has a certified laboratory whereby the results obtained from its laboratory can be accepted in all hospitals all over the world.
“Money has already been approved for the Uganda Heart Institute to construct the first regional heart institute in Mbarara, also the Uganda Cancer Institute has been given land here to build the first regional cancer institute and now the neonatal facility is undergoing construction for the specialized treatment” meaning that this region will be at another level,” Kanusu noted
The RCC retaliated that it is unfortunate for the government to lose World Bank aid on such local contractors who don’t want to perform.
“I have no kind words for this contractor. What hasn’t the client given you that we begin begging for the work progress reports from you? When I spoke to the contractor on the phone he told me that he was at the headquarters bidding for more work from the government when he was failing to deliver on a small work given here in the hospital” This is very ridiculous” Kanusu explained.
He challenged the government to always allow the local leadership to monitor and supervise central government projects for effective accountability, quality, and standard work produced.
“It is always hard and difficult for our office to monitor such big projects where the mandate comes from above which I think the government should revise to ensure proper monitoring of central projects in our respective local governments.” Kanusu said
He said that Mbarara Hospital is a teaching hospital attached to Mbarara Science and Technology University attracted to all kinds of both local and international specialists that should entertain any shoddy work going on.
“We even don’t know what we are monitoring here because there are no reports here and this really drills a lot of questions but if I am invited in the next meeting, I will be kin to follow up on the issue raised in this meeting today whether you have big directors elsewhere whom you think cannot be touched, the president will not tolerate you because the government labours a lot to retain these World bank projects,” Kanusu said
The RCC added that Uganda is at threat of losing such international support because of being labeled a corrupt government, especially by the opposition.
“We shall continue looking at you as enemies of government and an enemy of economic progress because of this, you are giving evidence that indeed corruption is there in the Ugandan government which we shall not allow you to remain saboteurs of the government projects. Go and tell your bosses that if it means discussing this with the president we shall do but not to lose any money in shoddy works,” Kanusu said
Eng. Peter Nkurunungi, the director of GESES Uganda, assured the ministry and stakeholders that they would work day and night to finish the work in time.
Mbarara Hospital’s pediatric department admits 3,000 babies every year and 35 in every 100 babies of those admitted annually require neonatal care services, neonatal mortality currently stands at 5 percent annually, with a third of these being born prematurely.
Mbarara Hospital offers other 40 specialized healthcare services such as neurosurgery, urology, pediatric surgery, cardiology, ophthalmology, plastic surgery, dermatology, orthopedic surgery, cardiothoracic surgery, and pulmonology services among others.
