Leaders advised to promote effective supervision in the Health sector

The vice chairperson Local Council III South division Fort portal municipality Mr. Kayondo Henry has called upon leaders in the district and those out side Kabarole to work as a team in monitoring health services to improve the sector. Mr. Kayondo said the sector is faced with a number of challenges including leaders working in isolation yet we are supposed to work with health workers for the development of our communities. The health in-charges, district health officers, health workers & politicians need to support each other especially in monitoring health center II’s & III’s for effective service delivery.

The vice chairperson was hosted on 11^th January, 2017 on ToroDev’s supported weekly program ‘Manya Ekiragiro Kyawe’ aired on KRC FM every Wednesday  8:00pm-10:00pm to discuss  the challenges facing health sector in the district and the role of leaders in addressing the challenges; while addressing on how leaders can address the challenges in the health sector, Mr. Kayondo said leaders are supposed to do supervisory roles, monitoring drugs, absenteeism of health workers, security of people & property, etc. he said once the above are taken in consideration, patients will receive required services and issues of lamenting will be history.

He gave an example of Mucwa & Kasusu health centre III’s in his division where they started a system of motivating health workers by giving them breakfast & lunch while on duty and this has made them become more dedicated to work and also attending to bigger numbers of patients in need of the services on a daily basis. ‘’we thank the village health team (VHT’s) whom we have worked together to reduce occurrence of diseases like malaria, typhoid, etc they have done recommendable work and really supported our communities under the health sector’’, said Henry Kayondo the vice chairperson LC III South division.  

                                        A health worker attending to a patient

Mr. Kayondo added that they empowered health management committees in every health center; we meet with these members, in-charges, nurses and receive reports on the operations of the health centers on a monthly basis. We receive their issues/challenges affecting their work and try solving what we can and what fails is forwarded to the council for further hearing and then a solution is thought at the end of the day. He advised that each health center should have management committee members and these people should be helped to know their roles as far as the operations of the health centers is concerned for effective service delivery.

The two hours live radio discussion was joined by listeners through call-ins & sms platforms; ‘’over 30 people got chance to call-inn & about 15 sent sms messages commenting , giving contributions & sharing experience on the topic. ‘’ our health center is overwhelmed by the number of patients who come to receive services, staff is not enough and this has affected service delivery’’, said Monica Kabanyoro a caller from South division, ‘’when we go for services we are told there are no drugs for how long will this be a problem especially in our health center II’s & III’s?’’, asked Rosette Tumusiime a caller from Kasusu in South division, ‘’ village health teams should be supported in capacity building to know what exactly they are supposed to do regularly & also motivate them with a monthly wage’’, said Bisange Manyindo a caller from Bukuuku in Kabarole district.

We take the pleasure to thank SIDA, NED, SPIDER, ICT4DEM, CIPESA & all other development partners for the financial & technical support in keeping our people informed.