Health
When Birth Becomes the Most Dangerous Moment, Wanduru & the Work of Making Labour Safer
The ward is never quiet during labour. Even at night, there are cries, some sharp with pain, others muted by exhaustion. Monitors beep. Midwives move quickly between beds. In the moments just before birth, everything narrows to breath, pressure, and time.
It was in places like this, years ago, that Phillip Wanduru first learned how fragile that moment can be.
Working as a clinical nurse at Nakaseke Hospital in central Uganda, he watched babies who should have survived struggle for breath. Some were born still. Others cried briefly, then went silent. Many were not premature or unusually small; they were full-term babies whose lives unraveled during labour.
“What troubled me most,” Wanduru recalls, “was that these were complications we have known how to manage for more than a hundred years, prolonged labour, obstructed labour, and hypertension. And yet babies were still dying or surviving with brain injuries.”
Those early encounters never left him. They became the questions that followed him into public health, into research, and eventually into a doctoral thesis that would confront one of Uganda’s most persistent and preventable tragedies.
A Public Defense, Years in the Making
On Friday, June 13, 2025, Wanduru stood before colleagues, mentors, and examiners in a hybrid doctoral defense held at the David Widerström Building in Solna, Sweden, and online from Kampala. The room was formal, but the subject matter was anything but abstract.
His PhD thesis, “Intrapartum-Related Adverse Perinatal Outcomes: Burden, Consequences, and Models of Care from Studies in Eastern Uganda,” was the culmination of years spent listening to mothers, following newborns long after delivery, and documenting what happens when birth goes wrong.
He completed the PhD through a collaborative programme between Makerere University and Karolinska Institutet, under the supervision of Prof. Claudia Hanson, Assoc. Prof. Peter Waiswa, Assoc. Prof. Helle Mölsted Alvesson, and Assoc. Prof. Angelina Kakooza-Mwesige, a team that bridged global expertise and local reality. His doctoral training unfolded as the two institutions marked 25 years of collaboration, a partnership that has shaped generations of public health researchers and strengthened research capacity across Uganda and beyond.
By the time he defended, the findings were already unsettlingly clear.
One in Ten Births
In hospitals in Eastern Uganda, Wanduru’s research found that more than one in ten babies experiences an intrapartum-related adverse outcome. This medical term refers to babies who are born still, die shortly after birth, or survive with brain injury caused by oxygen deprivation during labour.
Among those outcomes, stillbirths accounted for four in ten cases. Five in ten babies survived with brain injury.
“These are not rare events,” Wanduru explains. “They are happening every day, often in facilities where care should be available.”
But survival was only part of the story.
Following infants diagnosed with intrapartum-related neonatal encephalopathy for a year, his research revealed that about seven in ten babies with severe brain injury died before their first birthday. Among survivors, many faced lifelong challenges, difficulty walking, talking, and learning.
“What happens in labour,” he says, “does not end in the delivery room. It follows families for years.”
He describes the findings of his PhD research as appalling, evidence of an urgent failure in how labour and delivery are managed, and a call for immediate action to prevent avoidable complications. “Babies with severe brain injuries,” he notes, “faced the greatest odds. Even when they survived birth, nearly seven in ten died before their first birthday. Of those who lived beyond infancy, about half were left with long-term challenges, including difficulties with walking, talking, or learning.”
Mothers at the Centre—Yet Often Invisible
Wanduru’s work did not stop at numbers. Through in-depth interviews with mothers and health workers, he uncovered a quieter truth that parents, especially mothers, were desperate to help their babies survive, but often felt unsupported themselves.
Mothers followed instructions closely. They learned to feed fragile babies, keep them warm, and monitor breathing. They complied with every rule, driven by fear and hope in equal measure.
“The survival of the baby became the only focus,” Wanduru says. “But the mothers were exhausted, emotionally drained, and often ignored once the baby became the patient.”
Even as mothers remained central to care, their own physical and mental well-being received little attention. For the poorest families, the burden was heavier still: long hospital stays, transport costs, and uncertainty about the future.
These insights shaped one of the thesis’s most powerful conclusions: saving newborn lives requires caring for families, not just treating conditions.
Why Care Fails—Even When Knowledge Exists
One of the most uncomfortable findings in Wanduru’s research was that emergency referrals and caesarean sections did not consistently reduce the risk of brain injury, except in cases of prolonged or obstructed labour.
The problem, he found, was not the intervention, but the delay.
In many facilities, hours passed between identifying a complication and acting on it. Ambulances were unavailable. Referral systems were weak. Operating theatres lacked supplies or staff.
“These are not failures of science,” Wanduru says. “They are failures of systems.”
His work reinforces a sobering reality for policymakers that most intrapartum-related deaths and disabilities are preventable, but only if care is timely, coordinated, and adequately resourced.
From Bedside to Systems Thinking
Wanduru’s path into public health began at the bedside. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Mbarara University of Science and Technology in 2011, he trained as a clinician, caring for patients during some of their most vulnerable moments. He later completed a Master of Public Health at Makerere University in 2015, a transition that gradually widened his focus from individual patients to the health systems responsible for their care.
His work gradually drew him deeper into the systems shaping maternal and newborn care. As a field coordinator for the MANeSCALE project, he worked within public and private not-for-profit hospitals, helping to improve clinical outcomes for mothers and babies. Under the Preterm Birth Initiative, he served as an analyst, contributing to efforts to reduce preterm births and improve survival among vulnerable infants through quality-improvement and discovery research across Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda.
In the Busoga region, he coordinated prospective preterm birth phenotyping, following mothers and babies over time to better understand the causes and consequences of early birth. Since 2016, this work has been anchored at Makerere University School of Public Health, where he serves as a Research Associate in the Department of Health Policy, Planning, and Management.
Across these roles, he found himself returning to the same question: why babies continue to die during a moment medicine has long learned to handle.
Models of Care That Could Change Outcomes
Wanduru’s thesis does more than document failure; it points toward solutions.
He highlights family-centred care models, including Kangaroo Mother Care, which keep babies and parents together and improve recovery, bonding, and brain development. He emphasizes early detection of labour complications, functional referral systems, and rapid access to emergency obstetric care.
“These are not new ideas,” he says. “The challenge is doing them consistently.”
He also calls for recognizing stillbirths, not as inevitable losses, but as preventable events deserving data, policy attention, and bereavement support.
“Stillbirths are often invisible,” he notes. “But they matter to mothers, to families, and to the health system.”
Research That Changes Practice
For Wanduru, the most meaningful part of the PhD journey is that the evidence is already being used. Findings from his work have informed hospital practices, advocacy reports, and quality-improvement discussions.
“Yes, the PhD was demanding,” he admits. “But knowing that the work is already contributing to change makes it worthwhile.”
His mentors see him as part of a broader lineage, researchers committed not only to generating evidence but to ensuring it improves care.
With a PhD in his bag, Wanduru sees his work as a continuation rather than a conclusion.
“The fight to make birth safe for every mother and baby continues,” he says. “I want to contribute to improving care and to building the capacity of others to do the same.”
That means mentoring young researchers, strengthening hospital systems, and keeping the focus on families whose lives are shaped in the delivery room.
Dr. Wanduru joins fellows in the MakSPH PhD forum who concluded their doctoral journeys in 2025, and his work speaks for babies who never cried, for mothers who waited too long for help, and for health workers doing their best within strained systems. It insists that birth, while always risky, does not have to be deadly.
— Makerere University School of Public Health Communications Office, Graduation Profiles Series, 76th Graduation Ceremony
Makerere’s School of Public Health (MakSPH) is expanding faster than it can house itself. It now hosts more than 1,000 students, runs programmes across multiple countries, and anchors a large share of the University’s research output. Yet parts of its operation still spill into rented space, costing over $113,000 a year, because the infrastructure has not kept pace with its growth.
That constraint sits uneasily with the School’s economic weight. Health research accounts for more than half of Makerere University’s academic output, making it one of the University’s most productive engines. As Vice Chancellor Barnabas Nawangwe put it, “An educated population is a healthy population, and an educated and healthy population is a prosperous population.”
Beyond the university, health is not just a social outcome but a driver of economic performance. Healthier populations are more productive, more resilient, and less costly to sustain. Investments in public health, whether in prevention, systems, or infrastructure, raise an economy’s productive capacity, not just improve outcomes.
Institutions that generate public health knowledge and train professionals are not peripheral to growth; they are part of its foundation.
It is this logic that is shaping how Makerere’s School of Public Health is positioning itself. At its centre is a new, unfinished complex on the University’s main campus, intended to anchor the School’s next phase as a regional hub for research, training, and policy support. But like much of the system it supports, it is being built gradually, in a “build-as-you-go” approach constrained as much by funding realities as by design.
Construction of Phase II of the MakSPH complex is now at an advanced stage, with progress recorded across all sections of the site. As of March 2026, Phase 2B is nearing completion at 98%, while Phase 2A stands at 89%, and Phase 2C at 69%, each tracking close to or slightly ahead of planned targets. Current works are concentrated on interior finishes—including tiling, terrazzo installation, and external rendering—as well as preparations for lift installation, signaling a transition from structural works to final detailing. The project team is working toward a practical completion date of August 31, 2026, with timelines calibrated to align with broader resource flows and implementation considerations.
Six years ago, in February 2020, construction began on what will be the new home of the School of Public Health. The building, a permanent, purpose-built public health facility on Makerere’s main campus, will accommodate a growing student body, provide space for doctoral and postdoctoral fellows, and strengthen the University’s ability to respond to Africa’s most pressing public health challenges.
Professor David Serwadda, Professor Emeritus at Makerere University and Chair of the MakSPH Infrastructure Fundraising Committee, said the construction journey reflects the School’s “ambition, intent, and courage”—a bold step despite limited resources. He was speaking at a public lecture on health financing held at Makerere University on April 9, 2026.
But the ambition behind the project is not modest. “We are not building for today—we are building for the future,” said Professor David Serwadda, reflecting on a decision that shaped the entire construction effort. “We need to build for the next 100 years.”
That long view helps explain both the scale of the project and the risks taken to start it. When construction began, the School did not have the full funding. “We started with about a third of the required budget,” Serwadda said.
The approach was not without setbacks. A major grant from USAID, worth over a million dollars, was later withdrawn, midway through the construction, due to the closure of USAID. “We received what is called a ‘Dear John letter,’” he recalled. “At that moment, we felt the situation was a major blow, almost terminal for the project.”
But the project did not stop. It adjusted. “We said, let us continue, piecemeal,’” he said. “Finish the auditorium first, use it, and keep building the rest.”
“We have come a long way as the School of Public Health,” said Professor Rhoda Wanyenze, the Dean. “We are proud of that history, but we also recognize that it comes with responsibility.”
She argued that responsibility is no longer confined to Uganda. With ongoing collaborative work in more than 25 African countries currently, the Dean says this is “a responsibility to provide leadership in public health not only in Uganda but across the continent.”
The scale of that growth has been visible from what was once a small training unit in the Faculty of Medicine in the 1950s, which has expanded into 12 academic programmes and more than 1,000 students.
“When I came back for my public health training, we were about 40 students,” she said. “Now, we have more than 1,000.” “Public health is growing and evolving,” Wanyenze said. “And we are doing our best to develop the skills needed for this changing landscape.”
That includes new areas such as health informatics and data science, driven by the digitisation of health systems and the growing role of data in decision-making and AI. The School is already coordinating regional platforms on digital health, linking multiple countries in shared learning and practice.
But this growth has outpaced the physical systems needed to sustain it. For the University leadership, the implications extend beyond infrastructure.
“One of the most effective ways to invest in health in Uganda is to invest properly in Makerere University,” said Vice Chancellor Barnabas Nawangwe. “We must recognize Makerere as a research-led university with a special national role—not fund it like any other institution or department. Makerere is one of the government’s greatest assets. Invest in her, and the returns will exceed expectations.”
Professor Nawangwe hailed Dr. Ramathan Ggoobi, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, who delivered a keynote on investing in health for Uganda’s future in view of Vision 2040. “I wish to thank Dr. Ramathan Ggoobi and his team for their personal intervention in allocating resources in next year’s budget to complete the new School of Public Health building. That support is deeply appreciated,” he said.
Uganda’s progress in health outcomes is evident, but uneven. Life expectancy has risen significantly from about 50 years in 2000 to roughly 68.8 years in 2024, according to the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, Ramathan Ggoobi. Yet the gains sit alongside persistent financial strain on households. About 4% of Ugandans still spend more than a quarter of their consumption on healthcare, pushing many into poverty as a result of illness.
For Ggoobi, this points to a structural gap that recurrent government spending alone cannot close. “We must mobilise long-term domestic capital without adding fiscal risk,” he argued, pointing to the need for more sustainable financing mechanisms. Central to this is the gradual design and rollout of a national health insurance scheme. Evidence from countries such as Rwanda, Kenya, and Ghana suggests that well-structured contributory models can expand coverage while reducing catastrophic out-of-pocket spending.
“My Ministry and the School of Public Health must be partners. … Evidence framed in fiscal terms drives policy,” said Ggoobi, stressing the need for locally grounded solutions. “What works in Ghana might not work here. We need a model that fits Uganda.”
Uganda’s current macroeconomic conditions, relatively low inflation, currency stability, and expanding private credit may provide a window to move in that direction.
Uganda’s health system is entering a new phase—one where the biggest challenge is no longer building it, but sustaining it. External funding is tightening. Domestic resources are under pressure. Demand for care is rising faster than both.
In this new reality, health is no longer just a social priority but a financing problem and a test of economic strategy.
For years, the system expanded on government investment, backed by strong external support. Infrastructure grew. Services followed. But that model is now under strain. Expectations are rising. Citizens want better care, closer to where they live, and without the financial shock that so often comes with illness.
Uganda is already investing in health. The real question is whether that investment is sustainable and whether it is delivering value.
It was against this backdrop that policymakers, academics, and practitioners gathered at Makerere University on April 9 for a public lecture and high-level dialogue on health financing. At the centre of the discussion was a keynote by Dr. Ramathan Ggoobi, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury under the theme “Investing in Health for Uganda’s Future: Delivering Vision 2040 through Smart and Sustainable Health Financing.”
The event was organised by Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH) in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development.
Dr. Ggoobi does not think about health the way most people in government do. He is not persuaded by the language of welfare. When he speaks about health, he reaches for the language of growth, productivity, and national wealth. In his view, the sector is not a cost centre. It is an economic engine.
“Health is not merely a social sector issue. It is an economic transformation issue, a productivity issue, and a national competitiveness issue,” he said, arguing that no country has achieved sustained growth without investing in human capital. Globally, human capital accounts for nearly 70% of national wealth. The World Health Organization (2021) estimates that every dollar invested in health can return four to nine dollars in productivity gains.
“Investment in health is not charity. It is growth finance. So, my first message is to treat health spending as an investment, not as consumption. Every shilling must buy measurable economic and social returns,” he emphases.
His views reveal a shift in how Uganda’s Treasury thinks about health financing. Spending must justify itself. Investments must deliver returns. And inefficiency is no longer just a technical issue but a fiscal problem.
Ggoobi’s worldview is shaped by the idea that Uganda’s long-term growth ambitions under Vision 2040, which is 13 years away, to achieve what he describes as a tenfold expansion to a $500 billion economy, will be decided not just by infrastructure or industry but by the quality of its human capital.
Globally, he notes, human capital accounts for the bulk of national wealth. Health, therefore, is not peripheral to development. It is central to it.
If health is an investment, then it must generate returns. If it does not, then something in the system is not working. “Every shilling must buy measurable economic and social returns,” he said.
This is where the optimism gives way to unease. Countries that have achieved and sustained middle-income status did so through deliberate, sustained, evidence-driven investments in human capital.
Uganda is working within tight fiscal limits. The national budget for 2025/26 stands at Shs 72.38 trillion, with about Shs 5.87 trillion going to health.
Government spending on health has increased over time, rising from about Shs 2.8 trillion a few years ago to Shs 4.4 trillion today. But even with this growth, spending per person is still low, around $50 a year, less than half of what is often needed to provide basic health services.
Not all the money is used efficiently. Global estimates suggest that weak systems, poor coordination, and procurement challenges can cause up to a third of health spending to be lost.
According to Dr. Ggoobi, Uganda has made notable progress in strengthening its health system, driven by sustained public investment. Life expectancy has risen from about 50 years in 2000 to approximately 68.8 years in 2024, an increase of over 18 years. Access to services has also improved significantly, with about 91 percent of Ugandans now living within five kilometres of a health facility, while income poverty has declined from 24.5 percent in 2010 to 16 percent.
On the service delivery side, the government has introduced the malaria vaccine for children under five and rolled out electronic medical records across national and regional referral hospitals. Strategic investments have also been made, including 16 high-capacity oxygen plants, three regional blood banks, CT scan equipment in 14 of 16 regional referral hospitals, and 20 digital X-ray machines in general hospitals, with remaining gaps expected to be closed in the next budget. Together, he noted, these efforts demonstrate that sustained investment in health is yielding tangible results.
Beneath that progress, Dr. Ggoobi sees a health financing structure that is fundamentally unstable, noting that external partners still finance as much as 40–45 percent of health expenditure. Government contributes about 22 percent, household’s 31 percent, and insurance remains marginal at less than five percent. This balance, Ggoobi argues, is dangerous. It leaves the system exposed to shocks from outside while pushing risk onto those least able to bear it.
But the issue that troubles him most is government inefficiency. His priorities are to increase and protect domestic health financing, mobilise long-term capital, and improve efficiency.
“We are wasteful even with the little we have. Procurement is a major problem—many fights in government are not about mandate but about procurement. That is why we are moving all entities onto an electronic procurement system to improve transparency, reduce leakage, and ensure accountability,” said Dr. Ggoobi.
The government has enrolled 38 entities on the electronic procurement system. Full adoption is expected by mid-2026.
If you have good audits and we implement their recommendations, then we can expect positive outcomes. Number two is e-government, reducing human contact where it is not necessary. Unless you’re a doctor, you have to examine someone. Why do you have to sit in a hotel to discuss procurement? Humans must get out of discussing procurement. That’s why we are building the eGP and reviewing the procurement law. We are going back to the cabinet; we are going to remove human beings who are not necessary in the chain of procurement,” said Ggoobi.
Across the discussion, one issue drew near-unanimous agreement that prevention remains underfunded.
The Ministry of Health’s position, delivered through John Kauta, the Commissioner in charge of Health Information, Statistics, Monitoring, and Evaluation, is unequivocal that “the cheapest disease to treat is the one we prevent.”
Yet Uganda still spends more on treating illness than preventing it. Freddie Ssengooba, a Professor of Health Economics and Health Systems Management, MakSPH, highlighted malaria as a case study, both costly and preventable, while others pointed to rising non-communicable diseases driven by lifestyle factors.
This imbalance has fiscal consequences. Preventable diseases generate recurrent costs, crowding out other investments and reinforcing the cycle of inefficiency.
Mak Chancellor Hon. Dr. Crispus Kiyonga pushed the debate toward geography and access, citing that while Uganda’s health system was originally designed to follow administrative structures, the ambition to reach every village was never fully realised.
“We must plan based on what we can sustainably afford. We cannot import another country’s system. But where shall we save the majority of our people? It is in the villages. That is where children miss school due to illness. Where young girls drop out due to a lack of basic support, like pads. So, we must choose: given limited resources, what system gives the greatest impact? When the Minister of Health asks for a CT scan—something people travel to Nairobi for—that is important. But in the village, a child needs an antimalarial. The choice is between a CT scan and basic treatment. These are tough decisions,” says Dr. Kiyonga.
While the country is “highly indebted” and resources are limited, the level of care that Uganda can realistically provide to its citizens should borrow from China’s early pragmatic reforms of universal access first and quality later, according to the Chancellor.
“You cannot deliver health from a distance,” he said, arguing for a renewed focus on community-level access.
The Chancellor also strongly supported a shift from tertiary care to primary care. From Mulago National Referral and reducing its congestion to the village by investing in lower health facilities.
He urged the government ministries of Finance and Health to strongly collaborate with academic institutions to improve their work. “This dialogue should not be a one-off. It must be continuous. Makerere must engage the government with well-costed, risk-weighted proposals. We should build structured collaboration between universities and government so that research informs policy, and we reduce reliance on expensive foreign consultants. There is valuable research here,” said Dr. Kiyonga.
Taken together, the dialogue revealed a country’s health system in transition, from scarcity to expansion but not yet to performance.
As Ms. Jane Kyarisiima Mwesiga, Deputy Head of Public Service (Service Delivery), Office of the Prime Minister, framed it, the next phase must move “from expansion to performance, from inputs to outcomes, from financing to public value.”
But the path forward remains contested. Should Uganda prioritise insurance or direct public provision? Prevention or specialised care? Infrastructure or functionality?
The answers lie not in choosing but in sequencing, something Uganda has historically struggled to do.
Dr. Ian Clarke, a Physician, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and Chairman of Clarke Group Companies, speaking while representing the Private Sector during the dialogue, spoke emotionally on national health insurance, whose discussion has been ongoing for close to 20 years, but with minimal progress.
“We have had studies and proposals, but many were rightly rejected because they were not practical. You cannot design a National Health Insurance scheme that looks like private insurance. There is simply not enough money in Uganda—or anywhere—to sustain that. We still think in silos: public sector and private sector. Then we ask, how do we support the private sector? There are many ways—but as has been emphasized, we must focus on prevention and equity, especially in rural areas.”
For Ssengooba, while insurance is important and long-term, its implementation needs to be phased. He called for more investments in the health sector as the first line of insurance for citizens. He also called on the government to partner with institutions such as the National Social Security Fund (NSSF), which already have systems, capacity, and reach in place to support health investments. “If we leverage institutions like NSSF—for collection, for pooling resources—we can make progress. During COVID, they demonstrated that they can support national priorities. So, we should think about how to leverage what already exists,” he says.
Stephen Omojong of the National Social Security Fund highlighted an untapped opportunity. The Fund currently manages about Shs 30 trillion in assets, with millions of contributors.
This pool, he argued, could support health financing either through insurance-linked products or long-term investment vehicles. His example of a voluntary savings scheme now has 68,000 participants and Shs. 114 billion mobilised in a year, suggesting that behavioural barriers may be less rigid than often assumed.
Makerere University Vice Chancellor, Professor Barnabas Nawangwe, framed the dialogue as more than an academic exercise, describing it as a call to action. He urged the government to tap into the University’s research capacity to inform strategic investments, noting that “health research constitutes more than 50% of all research at Makerere University,” with institutions like the School of Public Health and the Infectious Diseases Institute playing a central role.
He referred to their national impact—from supporting over 20% of Uganda’s HIV patients to operating in more than 90 districts—and emphasised that Makerere brings in over one trillion shillings annually in research income. “When you fund Makerere University,” he said, “you should understand that we are not a net consumer—we are a net producer for the country.”
Taken together, the dialogue revealed a system in transition from expansion to performance, from spending to results. Uganda is no longer short of ideas, nor entirely short of resources. The real test is execution.
Whether the country can turn health spending into measurable outcomes will determine not just the future of its health system but the credibility of its economic ambitions.
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