UGANDA: ST MARY HOSPITAL LACOR IN MAJOR FUND RAISING DRIVE TO RAISE MONEY FOR CT SCAN.

GULU-UGANDA: Arch Bishop John Baptist Odama head of Catholic faith in Gulu Diocese has pitch camp again in Kaunda Ground in a drive to raise fund for St. Mary Hospital Lacor fund raising, according to promotion drive on the streets.

In 2005 at the peak of Northern Uganda conflict, of Archbishop Odama slept on Gulu Streets a sign of solidarity for the suffering commuter children who were sleeping on Gulu streets, for fear of their lives when the abduction by marauding soldiers was mass rooming northern Uganda.

St Mary Hospital Lacor needs UGX 600 million for CT scan according to Dr. CP Opira Executive Director for St. Mary Lacor Hospital.

Opiyo Twongweno has perform the song, Mama, Omegi na, come and raise money for Lacor CD scan, one of the most popular song now running in Gulu City.

St Mary Lacor is Christian base medical hospital; it was founded by Dr. Corti and his wife in 1959,

Dr Opira Cyprian Executive Director in his executive summary revealed that the FY 2015/2016 marked the last year of our second strategic plan.

St mary hospitallacor

During the annual stakeholders meeting, we updated the members of the achievement, challenges and gaps in the implementation of the plan.

Whereas progress was made in many of the areas, reducing the dependence of foreign donation was under mined by malaria epidemic which increased hospital expenditure and generally increased number of patients.

The process of producing the third strategic plan has started and we shall involve all stakeholders in order to have a comprehensive document. Service delivery went on smoothly during the financial year however, we got one major upset, our IT system collapsed and a lot of data was lost.

We learnt the hard way and measures are being taken to prevent re-occurrence. The hospital now regularly takes patients and students satisfaction survey to help us improve. The smooth flow of patients, waiting time are still problem.

We hope triaging, numbered card will reduce these complaints. The health centre which have delivered about third of the total service output needs more support.

They are now in-semi urban areas which mean the demand/needs of the patients are also changing. Request for ambulance for referral are also correspondingly increasing.

Social promises a US based NGO has donated an ambulance to the hospital. Our new courses in the Schools are; Diploma in midwifery, certificate in midwifery, theatre assistants, Diploma in laboratory techniques has been accredited.

The hospital has installed a high temperature, high volume and high efficiency incinerator which will improve disposal of medical waste.

Medical waste management especially segregation is not being strictly adhered to; although continuous effort are being made to have staff adopt the practice .The hospital is in the process of installing digital radiology system which will reduce or eliminate the use of films which we hope will reduce the cost and waiting time.

The human resource development program of the hospital is on course. This is the only way we can replace those who have left and also upgrade the others.

Result based funding, initially started by the NU-Health project has now become normal practice and some of our donors have accepted to adopt. The advantage it comes with is the regular external verification which we hope will help us maintain quality of services.

The result based performance will be used internally for salary increment .New partners are hard to come by and the CEI, Corti Foundation, Coutou and UEC have maintained steady.

Financing the service delivery remains a challenge. The last financial year was a part of the election year so local fund raising activities were not done. The hospital is trying its level best to meet the expectation of the stake holders despite the serious challenges of bridging the gap between expenditure and income.

We are ready to listen to suggestions and therefore implore the stake holders to come forth with ideas for the new strategic plan.

To all our partners let us continue to work together for the benefit of our patients. At the governance level the hospital suffered a major catastrophe in that two board members passed on namely; Mr. Vincent Opio Lukone and Dr. Ezaati Isaac Alidria.(May their souls Rest in peace), These were dedicated and very active members of the board.

We hope that other people will come forward to fill in the gaps left by these members. x We would like to thank all the staff, Government of Uganda, partners the Board of Governors and the patients.

The successful conclusion of the year can be attributed to the manual efforts. Challenges will continue to exist. Let us all be part of the solution.St mary hospitallacor