Uganda is a very beautiful country that can be summarized from the soap opera title ‘Beautiful but Unlucky’ In the many of its unlucky occurrences is the crisis that is healthcare. In this country, a serious illness is the worst thing that can ever happen to a regular citizen knowing the current state of our Health sector. Many happenings that you would think are a cause for alarm are just business as usual like the hundreds of mothers who perish in childbirth, the countless children lost to preventable diseases and the communities left to fend for themselves in the shadow of neglect. The interesting part (not interesting in a good way) is that a change of status quo to a slightly better position is not impossible.
Related: MORE THAN A MOVIE: “It Ends With Us” Raises Critical SRHR Concerns
Uganda’s 2024/25 national budget which was an estimated UGX 72.136 trillion had only about UGX 2.946 trillion which is only 4.1% of the total budget. This falls far below the 15% agreed on by African Union States (which itself is miserly) but should at least be the minimum standard. We could really learn more than just censorship of press and political persecution from our neighbors like Rwanda, we could also learn their 14.9% allocation of their national budget to health. The numbers and statistics often times water down the conversation but it is important to understand that Uganda’s shortfall is not just a number, it is a death knell for the vulnerable. The maternal mortality rate that often gets as bad as 336 per 100,000 live births. All these lives that we could be given a chance if we just maybe understood that the Land cruisers bought in the last financial year will drive the same as the ones bought in this financial year, so maybe our Old Ministers can pass them down to the new Ministers.
There is now more cause for alarm given that the donor funds that have kept most Ugandans alive (without their knowledge) are now slowly going away. From the previous trends, the most likely thing that is going occur is further cut down of what is provided for healthcare to meet our other ‘pressing needs’(note that there is nothing pressing nor needful about them). Take for example, despite the embarrassing state of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, funding for reproductive health supplies dropped from UGX 23 billion in 2022/23 to UGX 21 billion in 2023/24. In a country where 25% of teenage girls get pregnant, we should even be embarrassed to cut any money that can be used to provide for them contraception. This state of affairs is nothing short of what Hon. Sarah Opendi called it, ‘a betrayal of the women and girls’.
Read Also: Independence Day Bores Me
The global standard set by The World Health Organization recommends that low-income countries such as ourselves spend at least 5% of GDP on health to achieve universal health coverage. Shamefacedly, Uganda’s health expenditure is just 1.8% of GDP, compared to our counterparts like Ghana with its 3.5% and Zambia with its 4.2%.
Globally, countries like Thailand have transformed their health systems by investing 4.6% of GDP in health, achieving near-universal coverage and a maternal mortality rate of 37 per 100,000 live births which is 10 times less than Uganda’s.
As donor priorities shift, so should ours, to focus on keeping the citizens healthy and alive.
Life, Health, Healthcare are all human rights codified in Uganda’s Constitution and international law. Their derogation through deliberate underfunding by the state is going to retard progress of other movements such as that of Gender Equality. Women and girls remain at very high health risks given that most faults in the healthcare system have a disproportionate effect on their way of life and health.
Uganda must act with urgency and distribute resources from non-essential sectors, such as defence (because so far all the Ministry of Defence has done is render Ugandans defenceless).
The health of Uganda’s people is the soul of its future. Every mother lost, every child denied care, is a scar on the nation’s conscience. The government’s failure to prioritize health is not just a budgetary lapse; it is a moral and legal betrayal.
UPDATE:
Yesterday June 12, 2025, Uganda’s 2025/26 national budget amounting to approximately UGX 72.3 trillion was officially presented by the Finance Minister Hon. Matia Kasaija. In a landmark move, for the first time in Uganda’s history, the health sector received priority status, signaling a potentially transformative shift in government planning.
The Health Sector was allocated UGX 5.87 trillion, a notable increase from the previous financial year’s UGX 2.946 trillion. This development reflects a renewed commitment to strengthening public health systems, recruiting health workers, upgrading health facilities, and ensuring the procurement of essential drugs and medical supplies. Within this allocation, UGX 1.398 trillion is designated to support Mulago National Referral Hospital and the Uganda Cancer Institute.
This increase while still below regional and international health spending targets suggests a long-overdue awakening to the realities of Uganda’s ailing healthcare system. It also reflects the growing demand from citizens, civil society, and health professionals to stop treating access to healthcare as a luxury and instead as the constitutional and human right it truly is.
Uganda’s health crisis has long been symbolized by the grim outcomes of underfunding: preventable maternal deaths, untreated diseases, and overwhelmed, under-resourced public health facilities. The budget increase provides a glimmer of hope. But as history has shown, money on paper does not always translate to change on the ground. The real test will be whether these funds are disbursed timely, managed transparently, and actually reach the patients, facilities, and workers who need them most. Only then can Uganda begin to heal both literally and institutionally.
This article was guest written by Lutaaya Joshua Kimbowa, a student of Law and Social Justice/ Human Rights advocate. Connect with them via X (former Twitter) here.