As cases of heart disease rise, Heart Institute is constrained by funds
The number of children born with heart defects has raised an alarm in the heath sector as experts move to identify the cause.
Speaking to journalists last week, the Executive director Uganda Heart Institute Dr John Omangino said that 3000 new cases are diagnosed each year.
More Ugandans have had to survive on donations and hand outs to meet medication abroad because of the Uganda Heart Institute lacks resources and space to accommodate all patients who require immediate heart surgery
Of the 1.5 million children born annually 16,000 of these present with heart diseases many of which require immediate surgery.
"Of 50% of these babies, about 8000 of them require surgery but we can only work on 1000 because of limited resources," Dr Omangino said.
Of the estimated 17.9 million deaths registered world wide in 2016, 85% of these were due to heart attack and stroke.
Dr Omangino said of the Shs 19 billion allocated to the Heart Institute, only Shs 4 billion is secured for operations, which is not enough.
He said Shs 260 billion shillings is required to establish a state of the art heart facility to accommodate all heart patients.
