KAMPALA, UGANDA: The Executive Director of Mulago National Referral Hospital, Dr. Baterana Byaruhanga has been arrested by the State House Health Monitoring Unit over alleged mismanagement of the hospital.
Dr. Baterana was arrested Tuesday afternoon in an operation carried out by Dr. Warren Namara, the Health Monitoring Unit director in the State House.
According to Dr Namara, Mulago has for a couple of months been under investigation following various concerns about its management and the quality of services rendered to Ugandans.
“Yes, we are querying mismanagement of resources, medicines, and equipment at the hospital. As the head of the hospital, he is responsible and we invited him to help us with the ongoing investigations mid last month,” Namara said while addressing journalists shortly after Baterana’s arrest. Adding that they were forced to arrest the ED after he subsequently failed to honour their summons.
Last month, the Health Monitoring Unit arrested four people at Mulago Hospital over an Shs20.5b fraud at the facility. The arrest followed an audit report portraying that the hospital was involved in the irregular recruitment of two firms that forged documents to enable them to win a tender to provide services at the hospital.
Although this may not be the reason for DR Baterana’s arrest, the State House Unit is on record to have conducted an audit into the hospital following orders from President Museveni.
According to the audit, there has been improper accounting of funds at the hospital, forgery of accounting details by service providers of the hospital and these have caused a heavy loss to the government financially. The report also cited embezzlement and gross misuse of office by certain big wigs at the hospital.
Dr. Byarugaba took over Mulago National Referral hospital following his appointment by President Museveni.
His appointment followed investigations into corruption allegations and mismanagement by the Health Monitoring Unit that saw the transfer of the then Executive Director Dr. Edward Ddumba.
Dr. Byarugaba came in with promises of improving services at Mulago National Referral Hospital and fighting corruption that had bedeviled the institution.
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