Health

Health

Despite the improvements in the health of Uganda’s population over the years, the country is still far from the ultimate goal of health for all. One of the biggest drawbacks has been the high fertility that the country has been experiencing which has pushed up and sustained many of the poor health indicators such as maternal mortality ratio, and infant and child mortality rates. In addition, under-nutrition among children below 5 years and women of reproductive age has remained high.

The health status of our target beneficiaries is fundamental to the successful alleviation of poverty and achieving sustainable improvements in their livelihoods. Healthy people are better placed to break the cycle of poverty and contribute to the development of their own communities.  The poor are more inclined to spend more on health than on investment and education. This means that they are more likely to become poorer.  Besides, little investment in health facilities across the country has resulted in inadequate access to health services to poor and hard-to-reach people. Care Africa Community Initiatives Uganda aspires to make contributions in this sphere by way of the following;

Strategic Objective 1: To contribute to the production of healthy human capital through provision of equitable, safe and sustainable health services

 Strategic Interventions

 Community Empowerment

  • Develop community structures for improved health education, promotion and disease prevention.
  • Support implementation of primary health care at community level.
  • Engage communities to actively participate in maintaining good health and adopt positive health practices.
  • Promote male involvement in family health.

 Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health

  • Strengthen public awareness and empowerment to enhance consumption and utilization of Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) and HIV prevention services.
  • Improve access to Antenatal Care (ANC), Postnatal Care (PNC) and Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT).
  • Ensure availability and accessibility to Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health.
  • Strengthen school health services to address the specific needs of girls and boys.
  • Develop and sustain collective action and mutual accountability for ending preventable maternal, new born and child deaths; maternal and perinatal deaths, surveillance and response.
  • Harness non-health sector interventions that impact on maternal, new born and child health.
  • Develop capacity to analyze and repackage generated data on maternal and child health for decision making.

 Malaria Prevention

  • Coordinated and targeted behavior change communication.
  • Mass distribution of long lasting insecticide treated nets.
  • Scale-up the prevention of malaria in pregnant women as one of the vulnerable groups.
  • Scale-up the integrated community case management of malaria and other childhood illnesses.

 HIV and AIDS

  • Scale-up access to antiretroviral therapy.
  • Develop strategies to address gender related barriers that limit access and use of available HIV prevention and AIDS treatment services for all.
  • Establish and ensure access to HIV prevention and management programs for adolescent boys and girls.

 Immunization Services

  • Strengthen community participation in immunization services.

 Non-communicable Diseases

  • Promote healthy lifestyles that contribute to prevention or delay of occurrence of non-communicable diseases.

 Oral Health

  • Increase screening for and treatment of oral diseases particularly among primary school children.

 Nutrition

  • Design and implement essential nutrition actions using life cycle approach.
  • Strengthen, the policy, legal and institutional framework and capacity to effectively plan, implement, monitor and evaluate nutrition programs.
  • Strengthen advocacy, social mobilization and communication for good nutrition for all age groups.
  • Support and scale up cost-effective micro nutrient and community based initiatives.

 Strategic Objective 2: To increase financial risk protection of households against impoverishment due to health expenditures.

 Strategic Interventions

  • Diversify funding sources and explore innovative mechanisms to increase domestic resource mobilization and allocation for the sector.
  • Develop innovative purchasing and payment mechanisms for efficient use of health resources.

 Strategic Objective 3: To address the key determinants of health through strengthening inter-sectoral collaboration and partnerships

 Strategic Interventions

  • Design and implement strategies and programs addressing the social and economic conditions that make people ill (sexual and gender based violence, attitudes, practices, behaviors and mind sets, and appropriate shelter or housing).
  • Adopt a ‘Health in all policies’ approach, which ensures the Health Sector, interacts with, and influences design implementation and monitoring processes of programs in all health related sectors. This will include reactivating and institutionalizing inter sectoral collaboration fora to address the key determinants of health (education, agriculture, gender, water, housing, trade, tourism, etc.).
  • Incorporate health concerns to facilitate safe food production systems, manufacturing, marketing and distribution.

 Strategic Objective 4: To contribute to the reduction of the prevalence and impact of HIV and AIDS within our target group through specific programme and mainstreaming activities.

 Strategic Interventions

  • Conduct research into possible interventions in order to determine what Care Africa Community Initiatives Uganda can do to minimize the risk and vulnerability of communities in our program area.
  • Conduct risk and vulnerability analysis and develop action plans for all programmes.
  • Review our HIV and AIDS strategy and work place policy.
  • Identify national level partners who can have an impact in the HIV and AIDS sector.
  • Ensure that staff and partners have HIV mainstreaming skills and capacity to implement HIV mainstreaming plans in development and emergency programmes.
  • To support partners to develop HIV prevention programmes targeting high risk groups like married couples, fishing communities, youths, IDPs among others in areas where we work.
  • Support partner to develop HIV and AIDS specific programmes in our areas of operation and link these with other sectoral interventions.
  • Support partners to undertake situation analysis based on their specific area of focus.
  • Undertake HIV and AIDS research with partners to provide evidence for service delivery and advocacy interventions at local, national and international levels.