A man can live with dangerously high blood pressure for years without knowing it.
By the time he walks into a health facility, he may already be facing a stroke, heart failure or kidney damage. For many Ugandans, the cost of medical care means these conditions go undetected until they become serious.
That troubling reality emerged at a recent free medical camp at Mutungo Health Centre III, where health workers encountered patients living with hypertension, diabetes and other illnesses, some of whom were learning about their conditions for the first time.
The camp, organized by the Rotary Club of Kigo Seven Lakes Golf, provided screening, diagnosis, treatment or referrals to 424 people. Among them were 40 patients with hypertension and six with diabetes.
But beyond the diagnoses, health workers identified a broader concern: the growing difficulty of staying healthy amid financial hardship, stress, poor diets, and limited access to routine medical care.
Dr Maimounah Nassanga, officer in charge of Mutungo Health Centre III, said the number of people presenting with non-communicable diseases (NCDs), particularly hypertension, was worrying.
“We’re worried about the non-communicable diseases, the hypertension. I think it is more to do with the lifestyle. We’re having most of these patients who are obese. Some of them just find out that they have diabetes,” Nassanga said.
Her observations challenge the long-held perception that illnesses such as hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease primarily affect wealthy people. Increasingly, health workers are encountering these conditions in underserved communities, where poverty and limited access to healthcare make early detection and continuous treatment more difficult.
For someone struggling to meet daily household expenses, routine screening may not be a priority. Yet delaying medical attention can turn a manageable condition into a costly health emergency. Nassanga believes financial stress, changing diets, and declining physical activity are contributing to the problem.
“The non-communicable diseases have been there, but we’re stressed. People are poor. People are stressed, the lifestyle, the food that people are eating. Gone are the days when people used to walk long distances and take part in physical activities – community games, football and netball matches,” she said.
Her concern reflects a wider public health challenge: preventing chronic illnesses requires more than hospital treatment. It also depends on healthy diets, physical activity, early diagnosis and the ability to obtain continuing medical care.
WHERE ARE THE MEN?
One of the most revealing findings from the Mutungo camp was not a disease diagnosis but the striking difference between the numbers of men and women seeking care. Women accounted for more than four in every five patients attending the camp.
Men made up fewer than one in five. Although attendance at a single camp cannot establish national healthcare-seeking patterns, Nassanga said the figures reflected a problem she regularly encounters: men delaying medical attention until their conditions have deteriorated.
“In fact, we’re finding problems with most men because they don’t come to hospitals, and by the time a man comes to hospital, they are really so badly off. We’re telling them to sleep well, eat well and exercise,” she said.
The disparity raises questions about how health services reach men and whether more targeted community screening could encourage them to seek medical care earlier. It also underlines the risks of waiting for symptoms before visiting a health facility. Hypertension, in particular, can develop without obvious warning signs.
SCREENING EXPOSES HIDDEN ILLNESSES
The Mutungo camp uncovered a broad range of conditions, demonstrating that community health needs extend well beyond the chronic illnesses that initially concerned organizers. Eye conditions were the most frequently recorded, affecting 117 patients, or 27.6 per cent of those who attended.
Respiratory infections accounted for 83 cases, while 64 patients had urinary tract infections. Another 56 patients had musculoskeletal conditions, 49 had peptic ulcer disease, 26 had skin disorders and 24 presented with other gastrointestinal conditions.
Hypertension was identified in 40 patients, representing 9.4 per cent of those who attended, while six people were diagnosed with diabetes. These findings are important, although the camp attendees were not a representative sample of the wider population.
The figures therefore reflect the conditions encountered during the outreach exercise rather than their prevalence across Uganda. For those identified with hypertension or diabetes, however, diagnosis is only the beginning.
Managing these conditions often requires regular monitoring, medication, dietary adjustments and follow-up consultations. Without reliable access to those services, the benefits of early screening may be lost.
Nassanga urged Ugandans to pay greater attention to what they eat and how physically active they are. She encouraged balanced meals, controlled portions and fresh fruits instead of processed juices.
Such preventive measures can reduce health risks, but they become harder to sustain when households face financial constraints and have limited access to nutritious foods and healthcare.
A GROWING NATIONAL BURDEN
The scale of Uganda’s non-communicable disease problem extends far beyond Mutungo. According to figures cited by the Ministry of Health, NCDs account for approximately 35 per cent of deaths in Uganda.
These illnesses include hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and other long-term conditions. The ministry estimates that about 26 per cent of Ugandan adults have hypertension, many without knowing their status.
An estimated 716,000 people are living with diabetes, with approximately 89 per cent reportedly undiagnosed or unaware of their condition. If confirmed against the original national data, those figures point to a substantial population at risk of complications that could be reduced through early detection and appropriate treatment.
The consequences reach beyond individual patients. A stroke, heart failure or kidney disease can disrupt someone’s ability to work, impose significant treatment costs and place additional financial pressure on families already struggling to make ends meet.
That makes NCD prevention not only a medical concern but also an economic one. Dr Gerald Mutungi, assistant commissioner in the Ministry of Health’s Non-Communicable Diseases Department, has emphasized the need to address unhealthy diets, physical inactivity, tobacco use, harmful alcohol consumption and environmental pollution.
He has also called for stronger prevention, early detection and access to treatment. At a joint ministry meeting in Jinja earlier this year, principal medical officer Dr Frank Mugabe warned of increasing obesity, hypertension and asthma, noting that limited international funding for NCDs was constraining the response.
The challenge is particularly serious for a healthcare system already facing shortages of personnel, diagnostic equipment, medicines and funding. These constraints make it difficult to integrate routine screening and long-term management of chronic illnesses into primary healthcare services.
FREE MEDICAL CAMPS OFFER RELIEF
For communities with limited access to healthcare, free medical camps provide an important opportunity to obtain services that might otherwise be delayed or missed altogether.
Diana Nanono, sustainability manager at dfcu Bank, said the institution supported such initiatives because they bring healthcare closer to underserved communities. According to Nanono, the bank’s interventions have reached approximately 30,000 people across three phases.
Yet the Mutungo exercise also exposed the limitations of relying on occasional outreach programmes. Organizers acknowledged that the available time was insufficient for detailed consultations and counselling.
Access to specialized investigations and expert medical services was also limited. More importantly, patients diagnosed with chronic conditions require follow-up care long after the medical teams have packed up their equipment.
Patients welcomed the free services but called for more frequent camps, arguing that a single day was insufficient to address their health needs. Mario Odido, president of the Rotary Club of Kigo, warned that hypertension could remain undetected until serious complications develop.
She observed that symptoms commonly dismissed as ordinary headaches or fatigue may sometimes warrant medical investigation, while poverty can make access to screening, treatment and healthy diets more difficult.