The hospital’s Medical Director, Dr John William Manzi, said the facility’s surgical department has increasingly handled complex traumatic brain injuries requiring emergency intervention and intensive care.
“Most patients with severe head injuries undergo emergency surgery when necessary and receive specialized treatment in the ICU,” Dr. Manzi said, adding that many of the procedures involve removing blood clots from the brain following trauma.
He noted that timely surgical intervention often determines whether patients survive or not.
“Timely surgery often saves lives,” he said.
Dr Manzi expressed concern that many fatalities could be avoided if accident victims were taken directly to well-equipped hospitals instead of first being taken to small private clinics, where critical time is often lost.
“Valuable time is lost while bleeding continues inside the skull and damages the brain,” he said.
He urged the public to prioritise referral of serious head injury cases to hospitals with neurosurgical capacity, including Mutolere Hospital and Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital.
Dr. Manzi also called on local leaders to intensify community sensitisation on the importance of early and appropriate medical response in trauma cases.
He further explained that nerve injuries resulting from accidents often take between six and 12 months to heal, depending on severity.
According to him, surgeons sometimes insert metal plates or rods to stabilise fractured limbs after medical scans confirm the need for surgery.
Patients who experience loss of sensation or movement require prolonged rehabilitation, with physiotherapy playing a central role in restoring nerve and muscle function.
“As long as major nerves remain intact and the limb can still move, patients have a good chance of recovery,” Dr Manzi said.