Emergency care to be enhanced in Western Uganda

MBARARA CITY, April 6, 2024 – Seed Global Health Uganda in partnership with the Ministry of Health has pledged to continue working with Mbarara University of Science and Technology [MUST] and Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital [MRRH] to strengthen emergency care in Western Uganda.

This was revealed days ago during a partnership learning meeting in Mbarara City that was attended by physicians from Makerere University, Muni University, MUST and Busitema University which are all partners of Seed Global Health Uganda, a nongovernmental organisation partnering with government to improve emergency care, maternal, newborn, and child health services in the country.

According to Irene Atuhairwe Duhaga, Country Director, Seed Global Health Uganda, the five-year emergency care training partnership with MUST will expire in June 2024 and immediately a new partnership will be signed to extend emergency care training and practice within the university and MRRH.

“Our MoU with MUST ends in June. Moving forward, we want to have the hospital formerly onboard. They [hospital] are part of us but we need them to sign an MoU,” Atuhairwe said.

Unlike the previous partnership, Atuhairwe stipulated that the new collaboration will be increased to 6 years to enable the two entities conclude some of the projects that were interrupted by Covid-19 pandemic.

According to Atuhairwe, they will focus on emergency care and maternal health to save mothers’ lives during labour.

“We want to focus on a new strategy than the initial component where we have done a lot on academia and putting up a faculty department that is running now we want to see it ringing an impact,” she said.

On his part, Martin Msukwa, Managing Director Impact and Innovation, Seed Global Health, retaliated that the new partnership of emergence care will emphasise three pillars of education, practice and policy for the next 6 years.

“Changes come but of course the principles have not changed. We will continue focusing on education, clinical practice but also policy,” he said.

He emphasised that trainers in emergency medicine will have to be absorbed in the system to be able to directly support the health sector strategic plans and human resource strategic plans in developing countries rather than going on the streets to look for jobs.

“The people that we educate and who are ready to practise, they should be absorbed into the system.  We don’t want to train emergency medicine physicians who go on streets looking for jobs” he said adding that, “we know this will not be easy but we really want to try it and that’s why we want the government at the central role in the area of policy and advocacy of emergency medicine.”

For his part, Prof. Joseph Ngonzi, Dean Faculty of Medicine, MUST, appreciated Seed Global Health for the partnership, saying it has changed the face of emergence medicine as a core course at MUST.

“We don’t take our engagement with you for granted. You have made great strides towards emergency medicine and even in other areas regarding to trainings, clinical care, staff support because we [MUST] initially did not have any physician in emergency medicine,” Ngonzi said.

He confirmed that together with MRRH, they will be excited to co-sign the MOU with Seed Global Health to strengthen emergency medicine in the university and the hospital.

Meanwhile, Prof. Nickson Kamukama, Acting Vice Chancellor, MUST, urged Ugandans to embrace internationalisation to help to solve societal challenges.

“Internationalisation is the way to go that is why we are now registering results in emergency medicine” he said adding that, we have a tendency of promoting inbreeding which is not helping us. Let’s go beyond the boundaries of Uganda and Africa to work together to get solutions for our societal challenges,” Kamukama noted.

Seed Global Health Uganda is a non-government organisation that partners to train nurses, midwives, and physicians, building complete health teams that can provide high-quality care and save lives.

The MUST-MRRH-SEED interdisciplinary collaboration started in 2013 where they have so far received ultrasound equipment, training and capacity building as part of life saving intervention on trauma, maternal health, and emergency cases.

https://thecooperator.news/mbarara-hospital-boss-urges-govt-to-support-emergency-medicine/

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