Alongside access to education, one of the biggest challenges facing people in Uganda is access to affordable, effective healthcare. In Uganda the government has talked of implementing a system of free healthcare, with a health centre in every district. However the reality doesn’t always match the rhetoric, with most patients having to find money to support their own healthcare – buying drugs and other essential equipment. As government funds dry up local health centres have to turn to patients for money if they are to keep paying the bills. Access to the best clinics and hospitals is way beyond the means of most Ugandans, who instead have to just give the best care they can at home, or leave someone half treated for their disease if they can’t afford access to proper treatment.

Truely ending user fees for healthcare and creating NHS style systems is one way that will really help to break the cycle of poverty, and give people a healthy chance to work themselves and their families into self-sustainability. Sierra Leone began a free healthcare system for pregnant mums and children up to the age of five over a year ago and it has already made a huge difference to the numbers of mothers and babies that are living healthy happy lives despite difficult births.

The Children’s Hospital

Just recently at S.A.L.V.E. we have seen an example of the local heathcare system when one of our girls fell very sick with a chronic asthma attack. She was rushed to the local children’s hospital from her school and given emergency oxygen. We are pleased to announce she is now fine and back at school – but the conditions in the hospital were heartbreaking. Too many children and too few doctors and nurses meant that many children were sharing few beds, and relatives sleeping on the floors all around to care for them. We had to pay extra money to buy the necessary medical equipment for her care and to get her a bed in a private room (otherwise she would have been recovering from a potentially life threatening attack from a chair in a hallway or trying to share an already overcrowded bed). We also had to bring her bed sheets to sleep on, food for every meal, and Aunt Nakato kindly offered to stay with her in the hospital to give her the care she needed.

Despite all this she is lucky to go to a school that has a matron who is quick to act if she sees a child is unwell, to have access to any kind of hospital and medical care by trained professionals, and to have a caring team of aunties and uncles ready to step in and bridge any gaps in the medical system. In more rural areas in Uganda there might not be access to a fully qualified doctor (since many prefer to live in urban areas or even go overseas after their training) or a health centre within easy reach. It sure does make you realise quite how much the NHS offers us in the UK in terms of quality and acces of care!

Re-usable Syringes

One major healthcare issue in the papers recently is the re-use of syringes. This can be a major source of the spread of infections, including HIV. The Tanzanian government has recently agreed to move exclusively to ‘self destructing’ syringes as a means of cutting down on infections. Self-destructing syringes may seem like a very small thing, but it’s a great example of a deceptively simple but really effective intervention which can make a massive impact on people’s lives. Apparently Uganda is one of the next countries they hope to expand the use of these syringes. For the sake of everyone who is forced to use a dirty needle let’s hope this is soon the case!

Texting to save lives

Other great examples of innovative ideas are able to come up from the booming mobile phone market in Africa. Text messages are now able to be used to check if drugs are real or fake in Ghana and Nigeria through a free text to the pharmaceutical company to check if a scratch panel serial number is a genuine product. With up to a quarter of all drugs on the market being fake – this can really saves lives!

Texts are also being used by rural clinics to say they are running low on blood or medicine, to teach people about malaria and HIV, remind people to take their treatment, and give patients a chance to hold governments to account if they are claiming medicine is available when in reality it is not!

Now if only my mobile can be taught to cook dinner and wash my clothes …