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Women’s Hospital needs UGX 13 Bn to conduct major fertility procedures

FILE PHOTO: Mulago Specialized Women and Neonatal Hospital

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Mulago Specialized Women and Neonatal Hospital needs 13 billion shillings to procure equipment for fertility procedures.

The Permanent Secretary Diana Atwine says that to be able to operate fully and conduct procedures such as in Vitro fertilization (IVF), they will need to first install the requisite machinery. She said at the time of opening two years ago, they didn’t have money to install the equipment.

According to Atwine, the Ministry of Finance is yet to provide money for the equipment.

She also says that the hospital has to have the assisted reproductive technology law in place to avoid any litigation that may arise from the kind of services they hope to offer once they start full-scale operations.

However, while policymakers still point to a number of issues that still limit them from conducting full procedures, women in need of such services are having squashed hopes.

For instance, Loy Aine who has tried to have a child for about eight years through IVF tells Uganda Radio Network that she started saving for the procedure in 2018 when the hospital released its charges for various services that they were promising to offer.

For IVF she says, they said it would go for 13 million shillings and this for her was a good deal since she had earlier shopped around for the service at private facilities and the price range was in the highs of 20 to Shs 30 million shillings.

“I saved and got the money but when I went there last year, they recommended for me a private hospital”, she says now she has to wait longer to be able to save extra Shs 10million in order to afford the same service elsewhere.

However, currently, about 5 fertility clinics offer such services in the country but they have been largely a reserve for the rich.

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