Jinja hospital petitions health ministry over land encroachment

The Jinja Regional Referral Hospital (JRRH) board of directors has asked the Ministry of Health to tackle increasing cases of land grabbing, arguing that the act hampers the institution’s development programmes.

The board chairman Dr Charles David Mukisa cited several acres in Nalufenya in Jinja city suburbs donated to the hospital by the Madhvani Group of Companies but has since been encroached on by some individuals.

Dr Mukisa also made reference to the long-standing dispute between the regional referral hospital and the Muslim community in Jinja over a piece of land adjacent to the hospital.

“We planned to build staff houses but the project has been put on hold. We request the government for intervention,” Dr Mukisa said on Wednesday during the inaugural ceremony of the new hospital board.

In her speech, the minister of state for health (general duties) Anifa Kawooya who was the chief guest urged board members to work closely with the hospital management to promote transparency, consultation and teamwork during their term of office.

She asked them to exhibit high levels of integrity and accountability while shunning corruption and influence peddling.

Responding to a request for a cancer centre at the referral hospital, Kawooya said the ministry’s plan to open such units at the regional referral hospitals started with Gulu, Mbarara and Mbale and that all regions shall be covered.

The minister said it is aimed at decongesting the Uganda Cancer Institute at Mulago Hospital.

Kawooya who was in the company of Dr Joseph Okware, the director of health services in charge of governance and regulation at the ministry, said she had taken note of the complaints and that they would be handled.

Priorities

Dr Mukisa said high on their agenda as a board is to have a blood bank established at the hospital so as to reduce deaths caused by the lack of blood.

He also suggested that the ministry consider turning Nalufenya Children’s Hospital which is the children’s wing of Jinja regional referral hospital, into a national referral hospital for pediatric cases.

The eleven-member board headed by Dr Mukisa was sworn in by Jinja Grade One Magistrate Linda Nakalema.