The fight against HIV, TB, and malaria in Uganda has been a longstanding battle, but progress is being made thanks to the efforts of the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda’s (IRCU) Health Department. ICWEA is conducting accountability meetings across 21 districts in the country to discuss key issues affecting accessibility of health services for these diseases, share lessons learnt, and best practices.
Recently, the Nakasongola district held an accountability meeting where attendees raised various issues, including drug stock outs, multiple client registrations, and wrong information by clients hindering follow-up. District officials pledged to address these issues by redistributing drugs, hastening the process of scaling up Health Centres 3, advocating for unique identifiers, increasing sensitization through health talks and radio talk shows.
In a similar manner, the Buikwe district recently concluded its own accountability meeting. The meeting highlighted key issues facing the district, such as poor TB treatment outcomes, high rates of lost to follow-up clients and late presentations leading to high death rates. While the district has a 100% TB case notification rate, 13% of cases are lost, particularly during the first month. The LC5 C/Person for Buikwe, Mr. Kanaabi Jimmy, reported that the district has constructed new offices for the community department and secured 790 smartphones to be given to FLFs to strengthen monitoring and follow-up of HIV/TB clients for improved retention and better treatment outcomes.
Moving forward, the district made a key recommendation that ICWEA should shift from having district-level coordination meetings to supporting sub-county specific coordination meetings on a rotational basis. This change would allow for more localized coordination efforts, which may lead to better healthcare outcomes in the area.
Despite the challenges faced by these districts, it is encouraging to see that stakeholders are coming together to discuss issues and work towards solutions. With continued efforts from organizations like ICWEA and commitment from district officials, there is hope for improved healthcare services for those affected by these diseases.
These district meetings are part of the NFM III project being implemented with UGANET, HRAPF Uganda with TASO Uganda as the principal recipient.
