We've had a busy few months here at ETH. We're continuing our work to improve health outcomes in Uganda and have taken some big steps recently. Most excitingly, we've just opened our first health center in the village of Mpunde!
Below you can read more about the Mpunde Health Center and some of our other current projects.
Introducing the Mpunde Health Center
We are very proud to announce the opening of Mpunde Health Center! We are providing basic healthcare to 20,000 people who previously did not have any access.
The community has been very helpful in mobilizing for the health center (community leaders lobbied the district for a week to allow us to start faster), the district has been collaborative (they will provide HIV anti-retroviral treatments and vaccinations), and the team on the ground has been working hard in getting things up and running.
We want to provide an integrated healthcare model that can be replicated in developing countries across the world. We are looking for ways to address all gaps in healthcare – from community recognition of symptoms and signs of diseases to treatment at the health facility – to ensure that our patients have the best available healthcare possible. We are analyzing data of general health needs from a study that we conducted, and we are proceeding on to a general societal needs assessment as well as verbal autopsies to investigate the frequent causes of death in our catchment area. This will enable us to better understand and address the specific problems in healthcare that our patients face.
Skandalaris Global Impact Award
Skandalaris Center’s Global Impact Award competition as finalists. We are attempting to develop a scalable tablet-based algorithm that would help mid-level providers (nurses, midwives) make life or death clinical decisions in remote situations.
Improving mid-level providers’ medical knowledge and skills will save many lives because there is only one practicing physician in the district of 361,000 where we provide healthcare. The problem is emblematic of those in much of rural Sub-Saharan Africa, where mid-level providers are tasked with making life or death decisions without supervision. Research has proven that the rates of medical errors involving treatable diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria could be as high as 50 percent.
Our proposal for the competition was a scalable, sustainable solution that would reduce the rate of medical errors by guiding how to approach these diseases. The application would function without the internet or electricity – and could potentially change the way healthcare is delivered in rural low-income countries.
Although we did not win, we received a lot of positive feedback from the judges encouraging us to not give up on the idea, as they believe it has high impact potential. We are in the process of meeting with judges to see how we can improve the proposal.
Busoga Medical School
We have also had the opportunity to help in the conceptualization of a medical school in the Busoga area. The king of the Busoga region, Kyabazinga, has advocated for a medical school in the region, and there is a government initiative to decentralize medical education across Uganda.
Dr. Peter Waiswa, esteemed professor at Makerere University and Chairman of the ETH-U Board of Directors, has been charged with making this happen. Working together with Dr. Waiswa, we have drafted a preliminary concept for the medical school, which will be reviewed by relevant stakeholders in Uganda.
We are very excited to see where this project will lead!
None of this is possible without you.
Thank you very much to everyone for all the work, support, and advice that have enabled us to improve a little corner of the world. No one should die of simple treatable illnesses in the 21st century, and your contributions have helped make this vision into more of a reality.
If you have any questions about ETH or would like to become involved in the organization, do not hesitate to reach out to us atadmin@ethealth.org.
Additionally, if you would like to make a donation to help us on our mission to allow people of Uganda to live in good health and human dignity, we would gratefully accept your contribution.
