Minister of Health Dr Peter Kumpalume was responding to questions in the National Assembly on why construction of the hospital has taken so long despite allocation of funds in the current and previous national budgets.

The Minister said the funds that were allocated to this project in preceding budgets were used for designing and consultancy. He however emphasized that in the forthcoming budget Government has set aside funds for the construction works.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Health has also announced plans to recruit over 1 thousand 8 hundred health personnel to improve the delivery of services.

“We don’t have all the people we need; one of the reasons is that we don’t have enough funds. The Ministry of Health will recruit about one thousand eight hundred staff members. One thousand two hundred of the stuff will be recruited and paid by Global Fund and the rest will be paid by the Ministry of Health,” said Kumpalume.

He further said the number is sufficient to reduce some of the challenges the Ministry of Health is meeting mainly in terms of staff availability.