Annual report of the Ministry of Health / Uganda Protectorate.

  • Uganda Protectorate. Ministry of Health.
Date:
[1959]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Ministry of Health / Uganda Protectorate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/60 (page 1)
    MINISTRY OF HEALTH Annual Report For the Year 1959 and the Six Months from January to June, 1960 I.—GENERAL REVIEW This report is the first to be written under the new arrangements whereby an account will be produced of the work of the Ministry during the period extending from 1st July in one year to the 30th June in the next, instead of over a calendar year. In this way, the report of the Ministry’s activities will correspond with the financial year used by the Protectorate. In order to effect the change from calendar year to financial year, the period at present under review is one of eighteen months, that is to say, from 1st January, 1959, to 30th June, 1960. In conjunction with this review, two statistical supplements are being published, the first to' cover medical statistics and related information for the period 1st January to 31st December, 1959, and the second to' cover the period 1st January to 30th June, 1960. 2. During this time a most important piece of reorganisation was undertaken in relation to the medical services of the country. The Ministry of Health (formed in 1958 to replace the Ministry of Social Services) and the Medical Department became integrated into one unit under the title of the Ministry of Health. This gradual process of integration began by the transfer of the Minister and his staff into offices in the former Medical Eleadquarters and was followed by the gradual development of common filing and accounts systems, which proceeded so smoothly and successfully that complete integration had taken place before the end of 1959. 3. Mention was made in the annual reports for 1957 and 1958 of the restriction on any dramatic expansion of what was then known as the Medical Department^ through lack of sufficient funds. During the period under review restrictions on finance was even more acute and expansion was almost brought to a standstill. Such development as there was consisted very largely of trying to maintain the standard of services in the face of expanding demand and, on the capital side, in continuing still further the provision of certain essential types of accommodation particularly for tuberculosis, mental patients and maternity cases. The replacement of obsolete out-patient departments with new and improved units was continued as a way of putting valuable capital to good use without stimulating an increase in recurrent expenditure. 4. The building of the New Mulago Hospital progressed rapidly and con¬ struction was sufficiently far advanced by the beginning of 1960 to permit the