Uganda

Using Data to Successfully Advocate for Health Workforce Funding

In Mbale District, Uganda, one exhausted midwife—widely loved by her community and usually fantastic at her job—found herself snapping at her clients and being rude. For days, she’d been working without rest at a clinic that offers 24-hour maternity care. And she was burned out.

She’s not alone. The country’s vast shortage of health workers has left almost half the jobs in the health sector empty and the other half filled with staff who are overworked to the breaking point. In Mbale, clinicians could give patients only about five minutes of their time, which led to far too many mistaken diagnoses and prescriptions. Read more »

Kenya and Uganda Model Mentorship for Health Workforce Information Systems

Can a mentoring relationship between nations expedite implementation of the iHRIS open source software for tracking and managing health workers?

With that in mind, Robert Nguni of Capacity Kenya recently traveled to neighboring Uganda for a week-long visit to learn about strategies successfully put into practice by the Uganda Capacity Program. Read more »

Strengthening Health Workforce Data for Improved Health Service Delivery

To improve health services, Uganda is focusing on the people that provide quality care. In our new video, Ugandan health workers, managers, and leaders show how the country’s efforts are paying off—and how service delivery has improved. The following story highlights one aspect of this work.

“My office is like a web. All information about human resources is needed in my office,” explains Ojulun Joreme. He’s the principal personnel officer for Dokolo District in Uganda. “Left and right I have to keep giving out information about each individual.” Read more »

Motivated to Do More

Monica Watuvamu is already serving her community as a nurse and midwife at Kamuli Mission Hospital in Uganda. But she wants to do more.

“I’ve been actually going back to school,” she says, “to upgrade and improve my knowledge and skills.” The hospital is contributing to the costs, which is a big help. “I’ve been motivated, and I’m still motivated to help patients so that they get better.”

Working in the ultrasound unit, Monica recently discovered that a woman had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, which she knew to be an extremely dangerous and life-threatening condition. Monica moved quickly to get the woman into surgery, and a disaster was averted. “The following day,” she recalls, “all these people [at the hospital] were really happy that I managed to find it out and that the patient was helped.” Read more »

Improving Health Workforce Leadership and Management

To improve health services, Uganda is focusing on the people that provide quality care. In our new video, Ugandan health workers, managers, and leaders show how the country’s efforts are paying off—and how service delivery has improved. The following story highlights one aspect of this work.

Dr. WaniayeDr. John Baptist Waniaye was working as a medical officer when he realized he wanted to take on a new role. “I opted to go into management for health [because] I realized that there are gaps which when you’re a leader and a manager you can easily fix and make the environment very good for the health workers. And that is my drive—I want to see that health workers have what they need in order to offer their services and that our patients are happy.” Read more »

A Human Being as a Human Being

This post was originally published on the IntraHealth International blog.

One of the things I like
best about my job at IntraHealth International is that I’ve been able to incorporate photography into my work to support health workers around the world. Recently I was overjoyed to see one of my photos included in an article about frontline health workers in the Huffington Post. Here’s the story behind the photo. Read more »

Another Reason We’re Focusing on Health Workers: Ruth Wanyama

“Me, I was born a premature. And if it wasn’t [for] the work of the midwives, I would not be alive. That’s why,” says Nabirye Ruth Wanyama.

Ever wonder why someone decides to become a health worker and dedicate their lives to helping others? We sure do. It’s one of the standard questions for “I’m a Health Worker,” an informal video series that CapacityPlus produces to highlight how we place health workers at the center of everything we do. We know it takes a qualified and motivated health worker like Ruth to deliver life-saving health services. Read more »

Making Things Better in Uganda: Supporting Health Workers and Lending a Hand

Meet Martin Ssendyona, senior medical officer in the Uganda Ministry of Health’s Quality Assurance Department.

Martin’s job brings him into contact with a wide variety of health workers in different settings. “I think we need to be more innovative within the circumstances we are working,” he reflects. “There are many challenges we face, but many of these may not necessarily need additional resources. We need to see how we can involve others, engage the system, and make things better than the way they are now.”

One way Martin tries to make things better is through providing supportive supervision to health workers in remote areas. During one particularly memorable visit, he even lent a hand and got a surprising reward. Read more »

Uganda Stakeholders Plan a Way Forward to Expand and Sustain Health Workforce Information System

Uganda's Human Resources for Health Information System (HRHIS) started in 2006, as the registration and licensure registry in the Uganda Nursing and Midwifery Council. The council entered its historical data to track health worker licensure and registration information. Since then, the system has expanded to support the management of employed health workers and is now being used in the remaining three professional councils, the Ministry of Health, all four national health institutions, all 13 regional referral hospitals, and 74 out of the 112 districts—impressive progress in a highly decentralized health system.

The software the system is built on, iHRIS Qualify and iHRIS Manage, was developed and refined based on experiences and needs in Uganda. Seven years later, the iHRIS software is now used by 15 countries to support over half a million health worker records. Users of the system experience its benefits such as faster and easier access to vital information for more informed decision-making, and continue to envision ways to increase its functionality and improve its ease of use. As with any evolving technology, Uganda’s HRHIS challenges (e.g., connectivity in more remote sites, interoperability of various Ministry of Health and other government information systems, availability of sufficient dedicated human and financial resources, and resistance to change by users of the system) remain to be addressed.  Read more »

Health Is Wealth

This post was originally published on the IntraHealth International blog.

Meet three men in Africa who share two key beliefs: access to health care for all people is vital, and healthy people build strong economies.

Samuel Nugblega of the Christian Health Association of Ghana believes in helping his country develop economically by improving the health of Ghanaians. “Health is fundamental to everything,” he says. “And from Ghana, we say health creates wealth.” To bring this about, Samuel works to support the health workers who deliver vital services. Read more »

Syndicate content