FIELD FILES | One of our mentors Dr Martha Asiimwe writes following a visit to one the facilities we support:
“This is the Special Care Unit at Kigandalo Health Centre IV (thanks to MANeSCALE-ELMA). As you can see, it’s always clean. They have an Infant warmer, a Monitor, an Oxygen Concentrator and a standby Oxygen Cylinder. I think they would benefit from a few incubators. They are doing a very good job. The on and off electricity supply is their problem. So, despite their efforts to care for preterms and sick newborns, they always end up referring to Jinja Regional Referral Hospital thereby increasing the patient load at Jinja, increasing costs of the patients who must travel to Jinja and depriving these excellent health workers of doing what they love. If anyone can help with the electricity issue, please help as soon as possible. I would like to say though, the staff at Kigandalo HC IV are doing an excellent job.”
*Through our Maternal and Newborn Scale-Up (MANeSCALE) Project funded by the Elma Foundation, we have supported in-service training and mentorship of 200 health workers and 30 health facility managers to improve the quality of newborn care in six high-volume health facilities. We have revamped or used existing space and, in some cases, expanded structures to set up special care units. Kigandalo Health Centre is one of the beneficiaries.