Chinese philosopher Laozi, writing in the Tao Te Ching (an ancient Chinese text) 2,400 years ago counselled that “a journey of a thousand li starts beneath one’s feet”.
Aggrey David Kibenge, the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (GLSD)invoked that line Monday March 16 as he handed Jinja Regional Referral Hospital (JRRH) its first neurosurgery kit: an aluminum case the size of a nursery bag, packed with titanium scissors, diamond burrs and hand-drilled screws worth more than a new Subaru.
The tools (a craniotomy set and a posterior cervical spine instrumentation set) are light but they mark JRRH’s first step away from sending head-injury and brain-trauma patients on a fatal run hardly past Mabira or Lugazi along the pot-holed and traffic-jammed messy Jinja-Kampala highway.
The kits came from 20 patriotic Basoga and well-wishers who channeled their contributions through Busoga Health Forum, a member‑driven non‑profit founded in 2020 to rally clinicians around women’s, children’s and youth health in Busoga.
In an emotional speech, Kibenge, born in Namutumba but claiming Bugweri’s Busembatya which is 2km to his home, praised BHF board chair Prof. Peter Kyobe Waiswa for “loving Busoga enough to put scalpels where speeches usually stop.”
Kibenge admitted he had just left his mother’s body at Mulago mortuary yet chose Jinja because a small ceremony can signal huge change.
The urgency was personal because Kibenge’s own mother had begun that exact referral chain from Nsinze HC III, then Iganga General Hospital, then Jinja Referral Hospital, each center defeated by missing kit. By Mulago, it was too late. She died and by the time he was making the address, the corpse was at the morgue.
According to reports, ninety percent of head‑injury victims die before Kampala, which has become a repeated Mulago’s grim joke: “patients from Jinja always die when they arrive.”
So, for Busoga’s millions who cannot even afford ambulance fuel, a backpack‑sized instrument set is the difference between life and a statistic.
Kibenge pledged wider mobilization of Basoga and well‑wishers, through Busoga Public Officers Forum which he chairs, vowing to pull the region out of its stubbornly poor health indicators and, by extension, its wider development lag.
“We scaled down our activities during the run up to the elections because we did not want our activities and programmes to be distorted by people who would have jumped to wrong conclusions, but now we shall engage higher gears”, he said.
The soft-spoken PS echoed relief at Busoga’s new generation of educated religious leaders, noting that President Yoweri Museveni’s frequent complaints about local factionalism was counterproductive.
On his part, Prof Waiswa said BHF’s target is 200 million shillings for a complete neurosurgery set which will be enough to let JRRH’s two surgeons Dr Edwin Musinguzi and Dr Ronald Mabubi operate without improvisation.
Why a Head or Brain Injury Must Be Handled Promptly:
Swelling and bleeding or edema squeezes the brain in a rigid skull, pressure cuts off oxygen, kills neurons and triggers inflammation.
Within hours damage accelerates so first 72 hours are window where surgery can halt the cascade. Experts say waiting risks herniation, come or locked-in syndrome.
Herniation is a situation when pressure forces brain tissue to shift and press through openings in the skull, crushing vital stem functions often fatal without emergency decompression.
Earlier on Dr Alfred Yayi the Senior Executive Consultant for JRRH listed a catalogue of regional programmes and activities the facility has undertaken while more are also underway.
Top on the list of upcoming developments include the much-awaited establishment of Busoga Regional Blood bank whose ground breaking ceremony is around the corner.
Dr Yayi told the small gathering of experts that the Korea International Development Agency (KOICA), South Korea’s premier government agency Korea has already given contract to Korea Red Cross.
He said paper works in terms of MOUs with the Ministries of Health and Finance Planning and Economic Development have already been done paving way for the facility that will enhance health services in the region.
He also said JRRH is one of the facilities approved for the establishment of a Regional Heart Centre and that they are only waiting for funds. In the meantime, Yayi said they continue to conduct pediatric open-heart surgery and the next one is due in May.
“Together with the Uganda Heart Institute (UHI), we have so far run two annual surgical camps successfully attracting children from as far as Kumi and Kayunga and the 20 cases are doing very well as we wait to have a fully-fledged Centre”, he said.
Dr Alfred Yayi also mentioned other aspects in the pipeline to include Regional Cancer institute and regional dialysis centre all at JRRH as part of its broader mandate, vision and mission.
The vision of JRRH is being a regional centre of excellence in providing specialized and general health services for improved well-being of the people of Busoga sub region.
The mission is to increase access to all people in Busoga region to quality general and specialized health services.
The mandate is to provide specialized and general health care, conduct training, research and support supervision to other health facilities in Busoga region to improve quality of services.
Traumatic Brain Injury (BTI).
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)is Uganda’s silent epidemic-road crashes especially boda-boda rides with only about 16% helmet use, cause 70% of cases, hitting the youth hardest.
Makerere University’s guidelines call it a public-health crisis noting that 70% mortality in Intensive Care Units and a half of rural survivors left with cognitive damage.
The World Health Organization (WHO)ranks Uganda among sub-Saharan Africa’s highest TBI rates, warning that without helmets, data registries and neurosurgical access, deaths and disability will keep climbing.
Dr Ronald Mabubi, told journalists after the ceremony that TBI is a major public health crisis in the region fed by crashes on the Jinja-Kampala Highway stretch which forms part of the Northern Corridor of the Trans-Africa Highway network which links Mombasa (Kenya) to Matadi in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
He says JRRH sees 80 -100 neurotrauma cases monthly, 20-25 require surgery, yet about five or more patients die because tools, ICU-related issues and timely transfers are lacking.
What Does JRRH Require To Offer Super Neurosurgical Services.
Like they say ‘even the wisest men need tools”, Dr Ronald Mabubi’s full wish list: ICU ventilators; a neurosurgical theatre bed; operating microscope; C‑arm; flexible and rigid scopes (30°/90°); Mayfield clamp; neurosurgical electric drill; anterior cervical instrumentation set; thoracolumbar instrumentation set; and laminectomy set—tools that will let JRRH surgeons tackle spine and brain injuries without improvising.
The CEO Busoga Health Forum Moses Kyangwa, the JRRH management Board chair Dr Charles David Mukisa and Peter Kisambira who chairs the Finance Committee of the board, the Principal Nursing Office (PNO) Sr Sylvia Takali and former Buikwe District Woman MP Hon Dorothy Christine Mpiima were in attendance.
An Open Appeal.
Too many Basoga families watch a head‑injury patient leave home to a nearby health facility then to Jinja Regional Referral Hospital on a boda‑boda and never return.
We who carry insurance cards, drive cars with airbags and sleep in well fenced homes with clean water, electricity and other privileges cannot turn away.
The Busoga Health Forum’s drive to equip Jinja Regional Referral Hospital—and the health centres closer to your village, needs your voice, your networks and your shillings.
We at The Exposure Uganda TEU (We Expose, You Decide) ask every newly elected Busoga MP to pledge just UGX 5 million to JRRH: a tiny slice of a parliamentary salary that buys titanium scissors, saves a neighbor and proves leadership starts at home.
Join the hundreds of thousands of Basoga and well‑wishers who already give; open your eyes, open your ears, and let scalpels replace flowery words on the Kampala/Jinja City radio/TV talk shows.
