Mbarara Regional Cancer Centre

Mbarara Regional Cancer Centre (MRCC) is a public, specialized, tertiary care medical facility owned by the Uganda Ministry of Health. Located in the central business district of the city of Mbarara, MRCC is a cancer treatment, research, and teaching center affiliated with the Mbarara University School of Medicine and the Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital. Founded in 2017 by Professor Frederick Kayanja and Professor Tony Wilson, MRCC was established to address the increased patient burden at Uganda Cancer Institute. With 4,500 to 6,000 new patients registering annually at the institute, MRCC has been registering about 3,000 new patients annually, approximately nine patients daily, as of March 2018. MRCC is hosted on one of the wards of Mbarara Hospital, pending the construction of a brand new cancer center. In 2017, the government of Uganda borrowed €100 million from the government of Austria to construct the new center on a donated two-acre plot by Mbarara University of Science and Technology. As of February 2019, Mbarara Cancer Centre had cared for a cohort of cancer patients that exceeded 20,000 in number. The centre works in collaboration with Uganda Cancer Institute, the leading cancer treatment and research institute in Uganda, which is under transformation into the East African Cancer Centre of Excellence. With its state-of-the-art equipment and highly trained medical staff, MRCC offers hope to cancer patients in Uganda. The center provides a wide range of services, including radiation therapy, chemotherapy, surgical oncology, and palliative care. MRCC also conducts research on cancer and trains medical students and healthcare professionals in cancer treatment and care.