Meet Naomi
Naomi is a 40-year-old nurse from Buyende, the district in which ETH’s Mpunde Health Center just opened.
Ritah, one of our Ugandan team members, met Naomi while conducting interviews with community members in Mpunde to learn about the region’s healthcare wants and needs.
Naomi’s answers provide a revealing window into the challenges faced when trying to get healthcare in the region, and the hope and possibility that the Mpunde Health Center provides.
The Struggle to Get Quality Health Care Naomi owns a drug store and interacts with patients on a daily basis. She says some of the biggest health challenges in the region are, “Hernia, Asthma, pneumonia, UTIs, STIs/STDs, and malaria.”
“Poverty is a disease here...Our roads are also very bad which makes accessing healthcare a nightmare.”
Many don’t get treatment for these easily treatable diseases because treatment has been too expensive. Before the opening of the Mpunde Health Center, patients would have to travel at least 30 kilometers by motorcycle to get any healthcare. This ride costs between 15,000 and 25,000 Ugandan shillings each way. While only $4 to $7, this is a significant cost in a region where an average family only earns about $50 for a year beyond the food they grow for themselves.
Naomi was hopeful that the Mpunde Health Center will be affordable for community members, can expand its resources, and offer jobs. She says, “Poverty is a disease here...Our roads are also very bad which makes accessing healthcare a nightmare.”
You Can Help Provide Quality Healthcare to People Like Naomi
People like Naomi have just as much right to quality healthcare as anyone else in the world.
The Mpunde Health Center is now seeing patients so Naomi and the 20,000 people in the center’s catchment region have access to quality care at an affordable price.
You can help people like Naomi live in better health have the agency to determine their own destinies by contributing to our fundraising campaign to support the Mpunde Health Center.
None of this is possible without your support. A donation of any amount will go a long way towards empowering the people of Uganda to live good health and dignity. Thank you for your support.