Northern Regional Cancer Institute set to start full operation

17 April 2024, 5:57 pm

By Emmy Daniel Ojara

Gulu

The Northern Regional Cancer Institute will start full operation in June this year, the board of the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) has said.

Construction of the facility which is worth 30 billion shillings started in August 2021.

Currently, the works stand at 90% following an assessment report by the board of the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) on Friday headed by Professor William Bazeyo.

The facility is located in the Pece-Laroo division, Gulu City.

As of Friday, advanced machines and medical equipment for scanning, screening, diagnosing, and treating cancer had been installed at the facility.

Amos Obote, who is head of the facility says they have started partial operations due to the overwhelming demands with at least 377 clients attended to, and over 200 confirmed cases since July last year.

…………….Obote/Eng

Notable machines in the facility include a real-time screening machine, Computed Tomography (CT) scan, Mammogram for breast cancer checks, ultrasound scan, and x-ray.

Dr. Charles Olaro, the Director of Health Services at the Ministry of Health disclosed that the facility will commence full operation in mid-June this year.

Dr Olara says this will relieve the Mulago Cancer Institute which is currently overburdened by the number of patients.

He noted that over 30,000 new cases of cancer, but only 7,000 were seen at the Uganda Cancer Institute.

The UCI Board Chairperson Professor William Bazeyo says the facility has new technologies noting that the government has approved a budget for salaries for staff to operate the facility adding that the staff will be deployed by May this year.

………………Bazeyo/Eng