86% of the population access healthcare within a 5 km radius – Health Ministry

The Ministry of Health says 86% of the population access healthcare within a 5 km radius of a public or private health facility.

According to Robina Nabanja, the State Minister in charge of General Duties in the ministry, there are 6,937 health facilities in Uganda. This translates into 45.16%. Out of these 1, 008 are private and not for profit (14.53%) and private for profit (2, 976), an equivalent of 40.31%l

Nabanja, however, says the pattern of access to healthcare is not uniform across the sub-regions.

Over, she says, 34% of the people in Acholi, and 17% in Karamoja, Tooro and Kigezi still have to travel more than 5 km to access health care.

But even at that, Nabanja says there was a general increase in the number of health facilities and of course access to healthcare in the period under review – 2016-2021 manifesto.

Nabanja attributes this to the strong political will and active involvement of President Y. K Museveni in promoting health behaviors and programs, investments in health infrastructure improvement from primary to tertiary level, Public Private Partnerships for health – NGOs and PHP facilities are contributing to health care delivery, dedicated health workforce in Uganda and improved staffing levels although have not reached the target of 80%, improved availability of medicines improved from about 75% in 2015/16 to 83% in 2018/19, investment in the immunization program which has contributed to reduction of childhood deaths due to immunizable diseases and improved health awareness and health seeking behavior of our people among others.

In the next government, 2021-2026, Nabanja says the ministry will put much energy on educating community on preventive measures, increasing availability of drugs in health facilities, consolidating immunisation gains, increasing the HIV/AIDS awareness campaign and access to ARVs, increasing efforts to eradicate malaria, intensifying the fight against non-communicable diseases such as cancer and diabetes, introducing the National Health Insurance Scheme and an ambulance service, focusing on reducing both maternal and infant mortality rates, addressing the human resource requirements in the sector and continue with investments in health infrastructure among others.

Nabanja, says the ministry plans to vaccinate 60% of the country’s population for things to return to normal.

She says government procured an initial 964,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid Vaccine for the citizens targeting the most at risk population cluster first.

This, she said, are meant for frontline workers such as health workers, security personnel, persons aged 50 years and above and persons below 50 years with comorbidities.

Already, Uganda is ranked number 10 in the world in terms of suppressing the Covid-19 Pandemic – Lancet August 2020.

According to Nabanja, Uganda’s success story in the COVID-19 pandemic response is rooted in a four pillars: strong National and public health Leadership, dedicated scientists,the resilient health system, and the population support and that Uganda’s Covid-19 success was achievable because of the early activation of National Task Forceon Outbreaks for COVID19 (mid-January), with the escalation of coordination responsibilities to the Office of Prime Minister following the first few cases. Others, she says, are early development of the National Scenario-based Response Plan (mid-February) with several revisions to reflect evolving guidance and modelling and decentralization of the response to districtsand activation of DTF’s and their subcommittees with a strong focus on borders: screening at international airport since February, dynamic adaptation of the response at Points of Entry and universal testing of truck drivers and monitoring of their movements

Nabanja says early and stringent containment measures was another area that led to success. This involved mandatory institutional quarantine paid for by the government and a nation-wide lock down.

She says a unified commandof response between MoH and security forces (UPDF) also played a big role in the Covid-19 containment.

Going forward, the ministry says a National Task Force comprising partners and other sectors is in place to coordinate response to all epidemic outbreaks.

According to Nabanja, all the District Health Teams in the country have been trained on Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response.

She says refresher courses are given when need arises for example during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Nabanja revealed that the country has established laboratory capacity at UVRI and National Public Health Laboratory at Butabika to diagnose and confirm outbreaks including COVID-19.