Entebbe Grade B Hospital to remain closed to public as second wave of COVID-19 hits Uganda

Entebbe Regional Referral Hospital will not re-open to the general public this month, as earlier planned, the Ministry of Health -MOH has said.

According to the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary Dr. Diana Atwine, the hospital management has been asked to halt plans to re-open and continue managing only the Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases.

Last year, the hospital closed the outpatient, dental, optical, maternal and child care departments to focus on the effective management of COVID-19 patients. Before its closure, the hospital served a population of over one million people from within Entebbe municipality, Katabi Town council, Buvuma and Kalangala districts.

Muhammad Mubiru, the Principal Hospital Administrator of the Hospital announced last month, that management wanted to re-open the facility to the public on April 1. However, the hospital had planned to only offer outpatient services like child and maternal health services and anti rabies vaccination.

According to Mubiru, the hospital will only resume full operations at the completion of the renovation works at the Entebbe National Isolation Centre, located in Manyago, about 2 kilometres from Entebbe Hospital.

However, Dr. Diana Atwine, the Permanent Secretary at Ministry of Health,  says Entebbe  hospital will remain closed due to the surging numbers of COVID-19 cases.

By last week, scientists warned that the second wave had begun in Uganda. They claimed the wave started in the second week of April due to an increase in reported COVID-19 cases, whereby a total of 130 new cases were reported in the last week of March and first week of this month.

Meanwhile, between April 11 to 17th, a total of 222 cases were reported. Of these, 27 were admitted at various heath facilities including Mulago National Specialised Hospital and Entebbe Hospital.

Scientists expect the number of infections to double compared to the first wave were over 40,000 cases were reported with 337 deaths. The peak of the first wave was experienced during November 2020 and January 2021, where over 26,000 cases were recorded with 215 deaths.  

As a result, Dr. Atwine says Entebbe and Mulago will remain the biggest facilities for management of COVID-19 cases.