Restructuring healthcare support services and building resilience ahead of a crisis.
Grant Agreement No:
Report Period:
Project Period:
G-02332244422
Dec 01, 2022 – Jan 30, 2023
Single Report
Medicines & Supplies
Fourteen (14) of Three hundred Eleven (311) Medicines & Supplies requests have been supported for this quarter, the number of requests had steadily grown since 2015. Public Facilities take lead in requesting for additional medical supplies while private facilities request for complex resources that may be expensive for specific patients.
Theres a high Malaria Prevelance in Uganda at the Moment and our focus was to make sure that we approve all the Malaria Treatment requested for by facilities and given to those chosen to receive support in this quarter. In fact, hospitals from high-risk areas stood a better chance for this batch.
We donated some traditional Clinical beds to Bududa C Health Center IV and these were the only beds donated in this batch, not the best of Beds but due to circumstances, these would run the facility for a few months if not years. Unfortunately, the facility requires three extra beds for Maternity and these are extremely costly for us. We are mitigating fundraising but we cannot know for sure if this will work.
A few scholarstic materials were sent to two different orphanages supported by TTD. We could only manage to support four (4) Kids with scholarstic materials. We have requests for Clinical Kits for Orphanages but we do not have the resources to purchase these. Orphanages are reporting quite a number of Mental Health cases and the requirement for first aid including trainings.
There has been reduction in performance of some of our old network facilities causing them to initiate the Employee Assistance Protocols that require Municipal Councils to receive support on their behalf.
Municipal Councils are responsible for monitoring how these facilities use the support RHU Provides and are bound to report on it in their Municipal Reports to Local Government. This saves RHU the time to Report to the Central Government on how support is provided.
We gave Clinical thermomenters, two Autoclaves, medicines and some surgical gloves to two municipal councils on behalf of Mulangwe HCIII and Nansana HCII respectively. We have received response from both facilities that they are receiving resources from that batch as required and that past and future reports are under way and will be shared in due course.
Clinical Care & Treatment
We are assessing the increasing cases of hypertension and Mental Illness. We already believe that the increasing challenges associated with the economy in Uganda and around the world is playing a big role in the Mental and physical wellbeing of our people.
Although we have a project on Mental Health, it is not equitably active to handle Mental Health in our communities due to lack of enough resources. We are applying for the necessary funds but are yet to receive response to that effect.
Based on statistical data from government and reports from our network facilities, Malaria symptoms are now killing very many young children under 5 years of age and one of the leading cause of Neonatal Deaths in Uganda.
Evidence shows that Malaria Deaths are high in the months of May, June, July and November Each year. This Puts our next quarter, April-June at the critical highest level that requires purchase of Paediatric Doses as have been requested for by facilities. This will continue the trend of provision of Malaria Doses more than any other requested medicines if resources allow.
Our Staff worked with the Mama Mary Dominiciary from the 23rd to 27th, January 2023 to treat Malaria In Children under 5 and due to lack of financial resources, only 5 patients could see a specialist every day for that period of time.
Five (5) Health centers are willing to host the camp free however, facilitations on medicines and supplies, human resources and accomodations/ meals remain a burden we cant find our way around.
For the quarter October to December 2022, treatment accessibility at all our supported facilities remained at 36%. Patients reffered to specialists on the RHU PUHMED list were 69. This number increases every time we receive support from TTD and we do not expect anything different this quarter.
We are out of financial resources but some of the activities especially those focusing on paediatrics treatment continuing on good faith between the facilities and RHU as we search for funds.
Information & Education
There are very many loopholes in our education system that are affecting the quality of care, the delivery of care, directly affecting Access to such care.
Together with Ministry Of Health, we run an update session on Zoom Every Thursday to review performance on Maternal and child health. The commissioner in Charge of Reproductive Health at MOH Chairs these sessions and a weekly update is provided.
We continue building capacity through our hubs and networks to ensure that quality of care is met. Information on treatment and care, patient satisfaction and provision of free healthcare services continues to flow through public and internal channels to ensure all stakeholders are in the loop.
The need to strenthening community capacity on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene is paramount. We are also mitigating community engagement on Neglected Tropical Illnesses however we are short on resources to continue engagements.
We want to build our team, we grow by the day but orientation is important. Our teams are providing supportive care to patients at network facilities and are expected to go there with advanced medical skills that we can provide but we have not yet commited to as a means of increasing accessibility for our beneficiaries. Government continues to ask us to do this even for public health support staff.
We have facilitated three (3) online capacity building sessions for paediatric nurses and are expecting a physical engagement with General Practitioners from Nsambya Hospital in March.
We want to increase access to information on Mental Health but we do not have it. We want to learn from developed countries about how they handle cases and channel that knowledge into our systems to better support mental health patients at network facilities or in communities.
We have developed the Natal Concept manual to support pregnant women but due to lack of resources we have not moved it around enough. Suggestions are to distribute it every quarter through the supplies deliveries but we cannot be sure it will be shared.
We need to find financial support for healthcare information to ably support community education as a means to decrease community infections and or illnesses.
Quarterly impact to accessibility and quality of Care.
Beneficiary assessment
Based on the quarterly updates for October to December 2022, of the Nine (9) facilities that received support for that quarter, RHU services engaged 6971 Patients but only 2765 Patients received free medical services.
Mental Health is not yet added to the assessment sheets but a few facilities reported handling such cases without any help. Our Community teams providing social services engaged 915 Patients, some of these benefited from the SOMI bus services while others were follow up patients.
Facility Assessment
More facilities received approval for assessments than those that received support. We did not have enough money to facilitate more supplies to facilities and majority of the facilities had not submitted last quarter’s reports. By Reporting time, we had receieved enough reports to determine impact for last quarter.
