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The structure of Uganda’s health services and health coverage systems
Uganda’s health system is implemented using a public-private partnership framework. Since its
decentralization policy of 2001, public health service delivery falls under the largely decentralised
local government system governed at district level. However, the Central Ministry of Health remains
the custodian of health policy formation, planning, quality assurance, epidemic response, international
relations, resource mobilization, and monitoring and evaluation.
Uganda is administratively divided into 139 districts. Each district is administered by the District
Health Team (DHT). The coverage goal of the health sector is to have all households in the country
living within 5 kmof a health facility where they can easily access services. The levels of health facilities
are defined based on the local government administrative units (se below and table A2 in
the Annex).
Figure 37: Diagrammatic structure of Uganda’s health care system
Source: (Acup, Bardosh, Picozzi, Waiswa, & Welburn, 2017)
The GoU recommends that each district should have a general hospital as indicated in the MoH
guidelines. However, wide disparities in the geographical distribution and accessibility to hospitals
within the country exist. About 59 districts do not have public general hospitals due to the creation of
new districts by government (MoH, Uganda, 2016b). There is also inequity in distribution of the health