Access to affordable medical care is practically non-existant in rural Uganda. Seeing a doctor usually means they have to hike for miles. The ill are often carried on makeshift stretchers by friends or family—a bumpy journey that sometimes takes hours.

EMAS is assisting a small NGO called RAMBIA, located near Fort Portal, in West Uganda. To get to their location, we must take a four-hour bus ride from Kampala, a short taxi ride and then almost an hour on a motorbike slip-sliding up a muddy trail towards the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains. In the rainy season, the trail is impassable. So not surprisingly, infant mortality is high; life expectancy is 50 years; only 7% of households has access to safe drinking water and less than 1% of the population has access to electricity.

Summary - December 2011 EMAS has taken on a number of initiatives to help a local NGO called RAMBIA counter the effects of poverty, decrease the burden of disease and improve the treatment and management of sick patients. EMAS collaborates with RAMBIA in: 1) ensuring a continuous supply of clean water for the RAMBIA communities; 2) contributing to microfinance projects to enable families to earn money; 3) assisting families in growing their own food; 4) providing training for both the maternity care providers at RAMBIA and the traditional birth attendants to reduce deaths associated with childbirth; 5) visiting schools to promote good hygiene and health education; 6) launching a mosquito net distribution programme. EMAS has provided sufficient medications to stock the RAMBIA pharmacy. Please help EMAS enable RAMBIA to provide a better life, and hope, for the people in the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains in West Uganda. See Gifts of Hope # Z8a, Z8b & Z8c - Uganda.

 

June 2011

When we first sent a medical team to work with the RAMBIA clinic, near Fort Portal, they found that about 80% of the diseases they were treating were preventable—unsafe water, poor sanitation, limited use of anti-malarial bed nets and ignorance about basic hygiene and healthcare were the factors responsible; so the team felt compelled to try to address those issues.

Last year, we took on a number of initiatives in addition to treating patients. We trained Village Health Teams and Traditional Birth Attendants. We visited schools and talked to the teachers and students about basic hygiene; and we commissioned a report on water usage and supply in the communities served by the clinic. There is an abundance of rivers and streams in the area that could be captured to provide a gravity flow water supply system. Our next challenges are to raise funds for this and to explore what we might do to address the high incidence of malaria.

November 2010

We are working with an indigenous NGO which runs a small hospital in the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains. They have recently built a maternity ward and in 2010 we cared for patients and worked to strengthen the staff's ability to deal with deliveries, while training Traditional Birth Attendants and Village Health Workers.

The maternity ward is in much need of basic supplies, such as sheets, blankets, receiving blankets, etc. We are also supporting local initiatives to improve water and sanitation and to provide microfinance loans to the local community. The RAMBIA women’s group could use our help to generate income for the local women. Sewing machines or goats would go a long way to assist this group.

See Gifts of Hope # Z8a, Z8b & Z8c - Uganda.

December 2009

An EMAS CANADA team volunteered to visit and to pay their own expenses. The team included doctors, a public health nurse and a water and sanitation engineer. The Executive Director of EMAS CANADA visited the project before the team, to ensure that accommodation, local travel and all necessary arrangements were in place to support the team; and Health Partners International agreed to provide medications to supplement what we could buy locally.

Working with the RAMBIA staff, the EMAS Team saw over 500 patients in two busy weeks. We visited a local school and gave vitamins and de-worming pills to several hundred students. We taught community health workers, and looked into ways of supplying water, electricity and improved sanitation to the Health Centre and neighbouring community. We are also investigating manufacturing anti-malaria bed nets locally, in a joint-venture with Rotary.

Funds have been received to install urgently needed windows for a partially completed maternity ward at the Health Centre. The ward is already in use, but it is the rainy season and the wind is blowing the rain onto the patients. Having seen the need, particularly the high incidence of disease and the lack of adequate facilities, we are even more committed to working with RAMBIA and its community on a range of health-related issues. We are seeking donors and additional team members.

Contact Team Leader(s):

Dr. Paul Zeni

Dr. Debbie Zeni

EMAS Uganda Team Blog