Butabika School of Psychiatric Nursing has asked the Ministry of Health to increase the deployment of nurses to psychiatric facilities and support the introduction of degree programmes, citing staff shortages and the need to strengthen specialised mental health training.
The school’s principal, Dr Harriet Kwagala, said the shortage of nursing personnel was placing considerable pressure on existing staff, making it difficult to provide patients with timely and effective care.
Speaking during Health Minister Dr Chris Baryomunsi’s tour of Butabika National Referral Mental Hospital, Kwagala said the institution also needed support to expand its training capacity and improve the academic qualifications of nurses providing psychiatric services.
She said the school had a target of producing 1,000 nurses annually but had been unable to meet it.
“We need the Ministry of Health to support us by increasing the number of nurses because we have a target of producing 1,000 nurses a year, but we are not achieving that target,” Kwagala said.
She cited the imbalance between available nursing staff and the number of patients requiring care, particularly in intensive care settings.
Kwagala said a ratio of one nurse to five patients would be more manageable, allowing health workers to monitor patients closely, administer treatment and respond promptly to changes in their conditions.
However, she said some nurses were responsible for as many as 70 patients, making it difficult to provide the attention required.
“In intensive care, if one nurse is attending to five patients, that would be manageable. But currently, we have situations where one nurse is responsible for about 70 patients, making it difficult to provide the attention they need,” she said.
In psychiatric care, adequate staffing is essential because some patients require close observation, medication management, emotional support and assistance with daily activities.
Staff shortages can increase workloads, limit the time nurses spend with individual patients and make it harder to monitor treatment progress and respond to emergencies.
Kwagala said increasing the number of nurses deployed to psychiatric facilities would help ease the pressure on existing personnel and improve the delivery of mental health services.
Beyond staffing, she appealed to Baryomunsi to support the school’s plans to expand its academic programmes beyond the existing certificate and diploma courses to include degree-level nursing education.
The proposed expansion is intended to strengthen the professional preparation of psychiatric nurses and create opportunities for advanced training in mental health care.
Kwagala said the institution needed the ministry’s support to advance the initiative and equip nurses with the knowledge and skills required to meet the demands of psychiatric services.
Introducing degree programmes would also require the school to meet the relevant academic, regulatory and accreditation requirements.
The expansion could provide nurses with opportunities to deepen their knowledge of psychiatric assessment, patient management, mental health research and evidence-based treatment, while strengthening the pool of specialised professionals available to health facilities across the country.
However, increasing training capacity alone would not resolve staffing gaps unless accompanied by adequate resources and the deployment of trained personnel to facilities where they are needed.
Kwagala’s appeal highlights the need to address both the availability of psychiatric nurses and the quality of their professional training as Uganda seeks to strengthen mental health service delivery.
Her concerns were raised during Baryomunsi’s visit to Butabika National Referral Mental Hospital, the country’s principal public referral facility for specialised psychiatric care.
The visit provides an opportunity for the Ministry of Health to assess the hospital’s staffing needs, training capacity and other requirements for improving mental health services.