NGO partners with Ministry of Health to improve emergency medical services
MBARARA, October 19, 2023 – Twaweza East Africa, a non-government organisation, has partnered with the Ministry of Health to strengthen emergency medical services [EMS] in Ankole Sub-region.
The EMS, also known as ambulance services or paramedic services, are emergency services that provide urgent pre-hospital treatment and stabilisation for serious illness and injuries and transport to definitive care.
According to Marie Nanyanzi, Twaweza’s Senior Programme Officer, there is a need to cascade emergency medical services from the national to the community level so that more lives are saved.
“We all need to be aware of how to respond in case of any emergency,” she said, adding that, there is a need to build capacity beyond the health workers so that even the local people can be able to handle some medical emergencies in situations where health workers are unavailable.
She added: “There is a need to build the capacity of health workers in emergency and critical care. How do we get to know how to move people to the health workers?”
Nanyanzi also urged the Ministry of Health to liaise with stakeholders to regulate the ambulance service, particularly those provided by the Members of Parliament.
“The Ministry of Health should issue guidelines to the parliament of Uganda in the procurement and management of the ambulance vehicles. This will ensure some standardisation,” she noted.
Maria Nkalubo, principal operations officer EMS Ministry of Health acknowledged that the government recognises the role of EMS in saving lives.
Nkalubo however said that emergency medical services are still lagging behind and that more health workers need to be done to save more lives.
“We’ve so far trained over 25,000 community first respondents but compared to the 45 million Ugandans, it is just a drop in an ocean, meaning that we still have a long way to go,” she said.
She added that the government’s mission is to increase quality emergency medical services to all patients in the regional referrals by 2025.
“We want to increase the availability of quality emergency health care in all our regional referral hospitals, district hospitals, health centre IVs by 50 percent in 2025,” Nkalubo noted.
She also reported that the ministry has currently procured 250 newly equipped ambulance vehicles and 14 boat ambulances.
She added: “14 boat ambulances have already been dispatched to most of the districts that have lakes and some are already operational. We expect an additional 100 ambulances this year, of which over 50 have already reached the Ministry of Health and we also have a plan to acquire two aeromedical ambulances.”
Dr. Celestine Barigye, the Executive Director Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital said the hospital receives a lot of emergencies emerging from road accidents, which he says requires emergency response tools.
Robert Kanusu, the Resident City Commissioner Mbarara City North challenged all participants to become good EMS ambassadors.
“We want all of you from the different walks of life to be able to actively participate in emergency response,” Kanusu said.
According to the Ministry of Health Annual Health Sector Performance Report, injuries are still the top cause of mortality in Uganda, contributing 7.3 percent, especially in Kampala.
https://thecooperator.news/over-4000-amolatar-residents-get-free-medical-care/
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