Overview:
According to Wekesa, as Uganda, we need to identify, say Fort Portal or Gulu, or Arua and create and create a medical tourism city. Create a world class airport, encourage investment in world class accommodation, top of the range hospitals, top medical training facility etc.
The major reason we don’t have world class medical facilities in Uganda is because of politics of populism.
Politics of populism is where popularity determines the agenda regardless of whether it’s feasible or not. Anyways, let me share my thoughts below!
At independence, Uganda had a population of 7m people with 400 trained doctors who were mainly foreigners. Many left when we got independence and a big gap was created. The government then started training Ugandans. Over time many run away to other countries.
As Uganda, we need to identify, say Fort Portal or Gulu, or Arua and create and create a medical tourism city. Create a world class airport, encourage investment in world class accommodation, top of the range hospitals, top medical training facility etc.
When you do some online reading, you will find that Nigeria alone spends between 1.2b and 1.6bn dollars on medication abroad!
South Sudan spends close to 1.7bn dollars on medical services abroad and Uganda spends $73m on medical bills abroad and $113m on upkeep.
With that world class medical city, we go to Australia, USA, Kenya, South Africa and attract those highly trained Ugandan doctors back home. They together with our locally available doctors take charge of those hospitals, make sure you have top business brains run them as well.
Out of Nigerians 1.6bn dollar spend, attract $600m to Uganda, retain 183m dollars Uganda spends abroad on government officials, attract 700m dollars South Sudan etc By the way, on top of 183m dollars Uganda government, the general population spends more than 200m$ abroad.
Those world class hospital will pay medical personnel top dollar, hotel business will boom, farmers will make money, airport will thrive, everything will thrive in that city.
Then tax them highly and use the taxes to facility medical facilities the common man uses!
The above strategy needs top commercial minds assembled, proper marketing strategy of the above drawn and implemented.
The population must educated on how things actually work, the leaders must be willing to be called all sorts of names at the start.
The writer is the founder of Great Lakes Safaris Limited