Monthly Archives: August 2011

This month I saw four children with illnesses that were so serious I had to refer them to the community health center for medical treatment. Three children had pneumonia and one had malaria. I followed up on all the children when they returned home. I made sure they were taking their medicine correctly and following other instructions from the doctor. Three of them are okay now, but one is continuing to have problems so I am keeping a close eye on him.

I also screened 30 children for malnutrition. I measured the size of each child’s arm with a screening band and found that a 3-year-old girl named Barandjè was severely malnourished. She was very skinny and her face was pale because of the malnutrition. She rarely smiled. Barandjè is an only child. Her mother lost her first baby during delivery, so Barandjè is very precious to her. Barandjè’s parents are farmers and their harvest was not good this year, so the family has been struggling with not enough to eat. Barandjè’s mother said the girl had not had much appetite for a while. The mother continued to breastfeed her, but the family did not have enough money to provide a balanced diet. I told the parents they must take Barandjè right away to the community health center. Read more

Mahango Health Center III

Located about 15km from Kasese town in western Uganda. This is an in-patient health center managed by one in-charge supported by one volunteer. The health center has an in-patient capacity of seven (7 patients is the maximum number of patients that can be admitted at any one given time). Read more

Sarah Maliba is a volunteer at Ihandiro Health Center III in Kasese district, Western Uganda. She is 26 and has been volunteering at the health center for the last 5 years, without pay. Sarah received some training for one year in various aspects of nursing. The institution where she got this training is not recognized among the government health training institutions. For better grounding in nursing she was advised to seek attachment to Bwera Hospital to know how a health center is supposed to operate. She spent 6 months at Bwera Hospital, obtained a certificate and is now volunteering at Ihandiro health center III.

Sarah knows how to administer drugs in their rightful doses, both injections and orally. She has the ability to tell danger signs that are beyond her capacity. When this happens, she refers the patient(s) to Bwera hospital which is the nearest to the center and which has more facilities in terms of personnel and equipment. Read more

Mahango Health Center III

Located about 15km from Kasese town in western Uganda. This is an in-patient health center managed by one in-charge supported by one volunteer. The health center has an in-patient capacity of seven (7 patients is the maximum number of patients that can be admitted at any one given time). Most beds are bare, with no mattresses or any other beddings. It has a delivery unit that it grossly ill-equipped. Even water for washing hands or equipment used during delivery is not there. It has to be got a short distance away. The volunteer and in-charge often get overwhelmed by the number of patients who come to the health center that they are simply unable to keep it up to standard. The health center serves both adults and children and it tries as much as possible to avoid admitting patients unless they are in critical conditions. Read more

Blog by Nsinda Elman and Senfuka Samuel, WRA Uganda

Midwives and the Civil Society Organisations of Uganda have petitioned the Speaker of Parliament Rt.Hon. Rebecca Kadaga urging that government of Uganda has been reluctant to commit to the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health.

While presenting their petition, the midwives requested the Speaker to use her mandate as Speaker of Parliament to ensure that the Government of Uganda make commitments to this strategy with specifics on how it intends to deliver on the commitments.

“We ask you to use your mandate as Speaker of Parliament and the representative role as Members of Parliament to ensure that the Government of Uganda make commitments to this strategy with specifics on how it intends to deliver on the commitments including financing and timelines”. The petitioners request. They add that, “Government should take action and strengthen the working environment for health workers in Uganda. By implementing this, you can help end this needless loss of lives.”

“As midwives, we have seen firsthand how crucial it is that a woman needs skilled care during pregnancy, childbirth and immediately after birth. We know the dangers women face if they experience complications that are life-threatening for mothers and babies.” The midwives narrate. Read more

Blog by By Tonte Ibraye, WRA Nigeria

On Wednesday  August 17, 2011, hundreds of WRA Nigeria members stormed the Isaac Boro park complex to call on the Nigeria Governors Forum to recruit, train, deploy and retain more health workers in Nigeria.

As we drove out of Monrovia, the torrential rains made it almost impossible to see more than 2 feet in front of us. As people sought shelter to wait out the storm, the normally bustling streets of the capital emptied.

“Every year, we get at least two or three days of rain like this without a break” said Rebecca, Save the Children’s Sexual and Reproductive Health Support Officer.

“The roads quickly become impassable and it makes delivering drugs to people in villages extremely challenging. We often send as many drugs as we can as we don’t know when we’ll next be able to access the clinic. People who don’t live nearby can’t get there at all.”

It is a grim reality. While I sat thinking that torrential rains day in, day out could be quite depressing – they actually mean something much more serious: life and death. Read more

Sierra Leone only launched its Everyone Campaign last month, and they’re already creating waves across the country and within the Ministry of Health with thousands of people marching in the streets with the new everyone song, videos, wristbands, t-shirts seen everywhere. For a day, the streets of Freetown were awash in blue. Read more

WRA Tanzania Dialogue with Midwives and Parliamentarians for Safe Motherhood (PGSM)

In Tanzania the ratio of midwife to pregnant women in labour is 1:40- the ideal ratio is 1:6. Despite Tanzania’s policy of free healthcare for pregnant women and children under 5 less than half of pregnant women deliver with a skilled health worker.

WRA Tanzania’s 2011 campaign theme ‘we need more midwives, now more than ever’ aims to improve this situation.

Read more

Am a registered nurse in profession working with AIDS relief . my campaign is on prevention of HIV spread with the target to the teenagers living with HIV /AIDS. Read more