The Director General of Health Services at the Ministry of Health, Dr Charles Olaro, has spoken out on the rising cases of misdiagnosis in Uganda.
According to a 2022 report on Prevalence and Classification of Misdiagnosis among Hospitalised patients in five general hospitals of Central Uganda, 9.2% of hospitalized patients were misdiagnosed, indicating a significant diagnostic error rate.
Speaking to the media in Kampala on Tuesday morning, Dr Olaro said the government is working to plug gaps in disease diagnosis to stem preventable deaths.
“Base on the burden of the disease, people will make diagnosis based on the burden of that disease in that area, and also the same thing as you and i go outside the country when you just have fever, you can actually lose your life because they will be thinking of some viral diseases yet it is just Malaria,” Mr Olaro said.
This follows unverified claims by the Tooro Royal family that the late Omukama Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV who succumbed to an aggressive form of angiosarcoma cancer, had initially been misdiagnosed.
Misdiagnosis is when a healthcare professional identifies the wrong condition, misses a condition entirely, or delays the correct diagnosis, potentially leading to harm.
A misdiagnosis occurs when a clinician inaccurately identifies a patient’s illness or condition, provides Misdiagnosis can result in inappropriate treatments, delayed interventions, and serious
complications, especially for time-sensitive conditions like stroke, sepsis, or cancer
By Tonny Abet
