Hospital services
St. Luke’s Angal Hopsital provides the basic curative and preventive and promotive serviced expected of a rural hospital.
CURATIVE services are provided through the OUTPATIENTS department (OPD) and the INPATIENTS department. There is also a comprehensive HIV CLINIC (hiv clinic), which provides promotive services like VCT, as well as curative services with ART treatment, in an outpatients basis.
OUTPATIENTS DEPARTMENT (OPD)
The OPD is open from Monday to Saturday at 8.00am to approximately 1.30pm depending on the seasonal variations of attendances and closes when the last patient is seen. The department is headed by an Enrolled Nurse with the support of 1 E/N, 1 Nursing Assistant, two Nursing Aides and a Dispensing orderly. There are additional 3 vaccinators and a TB focal person allocated to PHC section of OPD. Amongst the staff a triage nurse was chosen, on rotation basis to organize the flow of patients. In the first half of the last FY patients in OPD were mainly attended to by the Clinical Officers. From the second half to the end of the FY MOs covered OPD very regularly. However under circumstances when an MO was not available, difficult cases were referred to the wards. The very sick and emergency cases were sent to the respective wards for immediate attention of the Medical Officer.
The gap in the establishment of the hospital has remained at about 25%. However a small component of dental health services has been incorporated as a dental unit has been established through a donor funded project.
Dental Unit Staff
Malaria, Acute Respiratory Tract infection, Diarrhea and Intestinal parasites are still the top main causes of morbidity in the Catchment area. The OPD attendance varied from month to month, being high during relatively dry months and dropped at the onset of the rains. During the FY some of the referrals from the other health units went straight to the respective wards. This was common in children and maternity wards. These were mainly due to the serious conditions of the cases.
INPATIENTS DEPARTMENT
The INPATIENTS DEPARTMENT has a total number of 260 beds, divided in:
Ø MALE WARD: 64 beds
Ø FEMALE WARD: 52 beds
Ø MATERNTY: 66 beds
Ø CHILDREN’S WARD: 78 beds
Ø ISOLATION WARD
Ø PRIVATE WARD
Malaria remains the cause of morbidity and it continued to bring most patients for admissions. It was equally the main killer disease among the under 5 years old children.
The wards were headed by In-charges, mainly registered and a few enrolled Midwives/Nurses. Under the In-charges were a number of other enrolled nurses, nursing assistants and nursing aides. There existed regularly updated duty rosters indicating the working shifts and duty allocations like admissions, cleaning, treatment, dressing surgical wounds, attending to ward rounds, etc.
Pillard of curative services is the theatre.
In the last FY were performed a total number of 589 major operations, including C/S. 381 (64,7%) were emergencies operations. Total number of minor operation was 596, with an increasing trend compared with previous financial years.
PREVENTIVE AND PROMOTIVE SERVICES (preventive-and-promotive-serv) are still under the general OPD, headed by an Enrolled Nurse. They drew the schedule of activities as stipulated in the approved annual work plan of the hospital. The support supervisions from the district were mainly for EPI and TB. Hospital based and the outreach services for immunizations were carried out successfully during the FY. Health education was conducted on sanitation, antenatal care, natural family planning and the immunisable diseases.
We have taken up some responsibilities of health care in the district with support from PHC Conditional grant allocation. The responsibilities include immunizations, HIV/AIDS activities, Malaria control, PMTCT, HCT and ART. The hospital’s annual work plan was incorporated into the District Health Plan through the Health Sub District.
The hospital is a member to the District Health Management Team and it responded to most invitations. Our involvement in the District PNFP Coordination Committee is still weak due to probably a weak PPPH.
The hospital had most of the basic and types of required infrastructures to carry out some of the activities of the district health services. The full participation of the hospital has all along been limited by low staffing and the necessary financial support from the district. The hospital participated in the National Child Days. It also served as the main referral health unit in the district since the main district hospital never functioned adequately.
In order to provide inpatients and outpatients services, the hospital can rely on MEDICAL SUPPORTIVE SERVICES like:
LABORATORY and BLOOD TRANSFUSION
PHARMACY AND IV FLUID PRODUCTION
CENTRAL STERILIZATION UNIT
X-RAY
Laboratory Staff
According to the mission statement of the Roman Catholic Church in Uganda, the clinical pastoral care of the sick has been fully incorporated and members of the staff trained.