On 6th October parliament approved 7.5million euros for the construction and opperationalising of the project named the UCI-
Northern Uganda regional cancer center in Gulu funded by the Austrian government, the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) has said.
Addressing the media on Thursday, the UCI officials said that this is intended to bring the services closer to the public.
“Annually, over 7,000 cases are registered at the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI) which is
an estimated 15% of the national incidence, with the rest of the patients not able to
access cancer care due to cancer services being a very long distance away from their
homes and limitations by other social economic barriers” an official said.
The funds of the project were obtained as a soft loan from the Austrian bank unicredit.
It is estimated that for every 100 new cases diagnosed, 80 of them die majorly because they reach health facilities late mainly due to lack of access to cancer services within close proximity of the population “therefore, bringing cancer services to the population enables us to serve the masses that are in dire need of the cancer services”.
The canter is expected to not only cater for treatment needs but also reduce number of preventable deaths each year by raising cancer awareness among the general public and also carry out research.
Mbarara region is taken care of serving mostly the western part, Arua for West Nile and a plan for Mbale to take care of the Eastern region in order to improve on access to cancer services in Uganda according to the officials.
The UCI has managed to take this major leap due to government’s giving the institution autonomy to do it’s work.
It is estimated that in every a thousand
population, 350 people are diagnosed with cancer.
