Last year in April, I wrote my thoughts about the emerging global lucrative opportunities in medical tourism. I tried to pitch and appeal to us as a country to re-orient our planning and investment to create a conducive ecosystem in the country that would help us to tap into the global blossoming medical tourism industry.
Well, not being people in the trenches of where the national planning, rationalization and prioritization is carried out, we cannot know how much thinking and planning has gone into ensuring that Uganda taps into this global medical tourism industry. All, we know, however is that currently there is unprecedented government goodwill and support for the tourism sector. This is demonstrated by the budgetary increase to tourism in the FY budget allocations for 2023/2024. This is applaudable and speaks to the adage that “you put your money where your mouth is”.
With no doubt, we all realize that tourism is and can be Uganda’s main cash cow if it is tendered to appropriately. However, there are many and varying interventions that must be done in order to make tourism a major revenue stream earner for Uganda.
There are recent events that have sparked the need to revisit the subject of developing medical tourism in Uganda. While attending the vigil and requiem service to celebrate the life of Mama Alice Oguttu, the wife of our colleague, friend and senior citizen, Hon. Philip Wafula Oguttu, with a lot of agony, Hon. Wafula narrated how they had to make expensive trips to Nairobi in Kenya and India seeking for medical interventions at least to prolong Mama Alice Wafula’s life on earth. Many of us know of at least a person who had to travel outside the country to seek for medical attention in order to save and prolong life on earth. So Hon. Wafula’s experience isn’t unique at all. It has happened to numerous people in this country.
Probably the Ministry of Health under its Medical Board would be the only ones that may know exactly how many Ugandans go abroad for medical treatment annually. However, we do also know that there are many Ugandans that go abroad for treatment privately and on whom the Uganda medical Board has no records at all. What can’t be in doubt is the fact that as Ugandans, there is a lot of money that is spent in catering for medical treatment abroad whether on government officials or private Ugandan individuals.
Now, if we as a country would start looking at medical treatment as another form of emerging aspect of tourism, probably we would be able to know that in continuing to lack sufficient and adequate medical facilities and medical care in the country, we are simply flinging the doors wide open for flight of scarce resources from the country. What would have been our slice of domestic medical tourism revenue within our medical system is instead let to make flight to other countries like Kenya, India, South Africa, Turkey, Germany, UK, Canada, UAE and US. These are the countries to which many of our Ugandans frequently go for medical treatment.
While there continues to be an aggressive drive to promote and encourage domestic tourism anchored on the vision of promoting the country’s fascinating tourism prepositions spread around the country such as the legendary Bigo Bya Mugenyi in Ssembabule, the mysterious Amabere Ga Nyana Mwiru in Fort Portal, the intriguing Nyero Rock Paintings in Teso, the medicinal healing hot springs of Kitagata in Bushenyi, the fascinating Source of the Nile in Jinja and the breath-taking waterfalls of Aruu in Northern Uganda and the Sipi falls on the slopes Mountain Elgon in Eastern Uganda, there is need to grow the domestic tourism experience to encompass other areas where regional medical health facilities are located.
The colonialists using their covert and subtle special purposes vehicles of their rule such as the Missionary vanguards had established medical health facilities in the different parts of the country which were meant to offer specialized quality treatment for certain ailments that were bedeviling the Africans at the time. The missionaries built hospitals such as St. Mary’s Hospital Lacor in Gulu and founded by the Comboni Catholic Missionaries, Kagando Mission Hospital in Kasese started by the African Inland Missionaries, Kisizi Hospital built in 1958 Hospital, Buluba Hospital located in the current day Mayuge District which was started by Wanda Bleska, a Polish Physician and leprosy expert who was a Roman Catholic Missionary. Mengo Hospital and St. Francis Hospital Nsambya were similarly started by missionaries to Uganda.
These and many other health facilities that have been built by government over years can indeed become centers of both domestic and international medical tourism once those facilities are improved and equipped sufficiently in terms of equipment, infrastructure and medical personnel. While being attended to for medical treatment, the patients and the cares takers will be spending money on a lot of local consumables and that in itself will be contributing to the tourism revenue generation not only for the areas where these medical facilities are located, but also to the overall coffers of the country.
We do know that the common ailments or medical conditions on which most Ugandans spend colossal amounts of money to seek for medical interventions abroad are namely, Heart, Kidney, Lung, Cancer, Lumber and Eye problems. Ugandans are not referred to medical treatments abroad on account of lack of qualified specialized local medical experts in these ailiments, but rather and most often due to lack of the necessary modern equipment that would assist our local Ugandan Medical Doctors to carry out the requisite expletory examinations, tests and operations.
The other reason why our experienced and specialized medical experts continue to flock out of the country is due to poor remuneration, welfare and environment that they find themselves executing their duties in. This takes me back to the testimony of Hon. Wafula Oguttu that he delivered at the vigil of the celebration of his departed wife Mama Alice. Chief Wafu, as his wife fondly called him at home, narrated that although they had been referred from Mulago Hospital to Nairobi Hospital, the person who tended to Chief Wafu’s wife in Nairobi was actually a Ugandan called Prof. Lule. So fascinating that you fly to a neighboring country for better treatment, but only to find that the person offering you that treatment is actually your own countryman who ought to be performing his exemplary duties in his country!
This serves to convince us that our shortage isn’t about the expertise in the country, but the way we treat those experts and the way we equip our health facilities.
Therefore, if we as a country are going to partake of the huge existing global market of international medical tourism currently amounting to $11.7bn but projected to grow to $36bn by 2032, there are things that we must start doing seriously.
- a) We must stop looking at the outcry currently going in the country about the failure in the health system of our country as merely a political opposition posturing. The rot that is being exposed in our health facilities across the country should be addressed.
- b) The agitation by the medical workers at all levels should be urgently addressed and sanity restored to those that care for our health and well being.
- c) The Declarations that Uganda signed to must be implemented fully. For instance, Uganda signed to the WHO Alma–Ata Declaration which stipulated that Primary health care as a key to the attainment of the goal of Health for All must be always prioritized. In 2001, under the auspices of the African Union, Uganda signed to the Abuja Declaration which stipulated that each country committed to spending at least 15% of their nations annual budget to improving Health care systems in the country.
- d) Government should urgently harmonize and finalize the enactment and quick operationalization of the National Health Insurance System. Continuing to leave Ugandans with no social and health safety net only exposes the wananchi to the exploitation of the private health providers while offering no pathway for an improved and better health system in the country.
- e) Our already known medicinal and wellness natural endowment areas such as Kitagata Hot Springs, Semliki Hot Springs, Majimoto Hot Springs at Kanangorok area in Kidepo Valley National Park need to be developed and promoted.
In order to make Uganda an ultimate and attractive destination for the seekers of medical treatment, there is need to harmonize government planning and budget allocations. In as much as the Ministry of Health must try to put its acts together, so is required of the Ministry of Works and Transport and that of Internal Affairs.
Days are gone long ago when visitors or tourists to Africa enjoyed or tolerated the road gullies, designer pot-holes, dusty, stench drenched and muddy roads. Potential or intending tourists hate to see images of people being flogged and thrown on police pickups like sacks of maize all done in guise of maintaining law and order. Peace in a country cannot only be defined by the lack of war, but by many parameters and we must be very cautious of these if we are to attract substantial number of paying visitors.
---By Edward Baliddawa 30th June 2023
