Village Health Teams and Health Management Committees urged to play their roles in improving Health Services

The Kabarole district health educator madam Catherine Kemigabo has urged political leaders & health workers in the district to build team work while working together if the health sector is to be improved. ‘’our elected leaders, health management committees, health workers should work hand in hand in order to check and resolve some of the challenges in the health sector. The health sector should not be left to trained health workers alone for they may not solely solve the prevailing issues facing the sector in the country’’, said Catherine Kemigabo

Catherine said these while appearing live on ToroDev supported weekly radio program ‘Manya ekiragiro Kyawe’ on KRC Fm that is aired live every Wednesday 8:00pm-10:00pm. While discussing on the topic; Public policy advocacy; what are the challenges on the existing health policies in Uganda? on 4^th January,2017 Catherine although the district has tried to train health workers at different levels, preventable diseases such as malaria, worm diseases, typhoid, etc have remained stubborn yet they are supposed to be managed at village level by Village Health Teams (VHT’s) who are trained to bridge the gap between health facilities & households.VHT’s have been empowered and given first aid box to avert the minor diseases and also assist in other community health programs such as family planning & HIV/Aids programs which are still essential to our communities.

The district has empowered them with drugs which can help to treat those diseases. This has helped to support other programs which are beneficial to the community such as family planning and HIV programs which are still essential to our villages and communities.Drugs are supplied in a period of 2 months to health centers by national medical stores and supervised by health management committees, DHO ‘s office & district internal security officer and some drugs are not supposed to be administered or received at say health centre 11’s that is why sometimes patients are referred to health centre 111’s and others go to hospital which creates congestion there because even patients of minor cases needs to be attended at the hospital.

 

People waiting for health services at a health center.

 Catherine said some members of the health management committees’ needs capacity building training's in order to do their roles well which the district cannot effectively do due to financial implications which remains a challenge. Other challenges include drug stock outs, under staffing, lack of enough drugs, limited supervision of health centers, fully furnished wards for admission, lack of access to water at the health centers, etc. Catherine said if there can be team work between politicians and health workers, threats affecting the health sector can be dealt with hence improving the health services in the district & country as a whole.

A health worker attending to a patient.

 The 2 hours live discuss had the participation of over 50 listeners through call-ins & sms; ‘’VHT’s need to be helped by building their capacity regularly and also storage and transportation facilities need to be checked for effective service delivery’’, said Ms Ayebale Sarah a caller from Rwaihamba in Kabarole district, ‘’our health center11’s are doing nothing on ground because they do not have drugs & even staff members which has made services poor in our communities’’, said Joan Tumusiime a caller from Kabende Sub county in Kabarole district, ‘’how is the process of receiving drugs? Does the DHO request or the national medical stores just delivers? Because we hardly get drugs in our health center 11’s & 111’s, can someone enlighten me please’’, said Dan Bagonza a caller from Rwebisengo in Ntoroko district

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We are grateful to SIDA, NED, SPIDER, ICT4DEM, CIPESA & all other development partners for the financial & technical support to keep such educative programs running.