The online campaign for the passing of the School Health
Policy took the internet by storm after a Video was aired on NBS TV showing the
outrageous numbers of teenage pregnancies in Kamuli District.
Attached are the analytics of the online activity.
The Ministry of Education and Sports has drafted a National School Health Policy to guide the design and implementation of interventions to improve health in school settings in Uganda over the period 2018-2023. Basing on results from a review of the latest draft of the policy, this brief highlights areas of the draft policy that the Ministry needs to improve in order to better align the policy with the human
The National School Health Policy 2018-2023 is being developed in response to not only the poor school health indicators but also to the under performance of interventions that have so far been implemented. Interventions implemented by government and other actors in recent years include Uganda school health and reading program (SHRP); school health project (SHEP); school health and nutrition program; adolescent reproductive health, guidance and counselling; school water and sanitation; sexuality education and life skills, the Presidential Initiative on AIDS Strategy for Communication to Youth (PIASCY). There have also been school health programs targeting children above five years for deworming and oral hygiene and girls of reproductive age for vaccination.
In spite of these and other interventions, school health indicators remain appalling. Adolescent pregnancies remain high; UDHS 2016 estimated that one in four adolescent girls aged 15-19 years was either pregnant or already had a child. In a national study of adolescent health risk behavior in Uganda by Ministry of Health, almost 22% of adolescents reported some form of sexual activity. This not only puts their health at risk, but also their education and future wellbeing. A report by the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) has revealed that pregnancy is responsible for the drop-out of school of 13.1% of girls aged 14-18 years in West Nile.
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The Uganda Law Society (ULS) is an Association of all advocates in Uganda. It has different clusters and one of them is the health and the Law cluster chaired officially by Mr. Mulumba Moses the Executive Director, CEHURD. It was launched in December 2017 and has already been nominated as the best performing cluster in 2018. The mandate of the cluster is to inform the ULS on the trends and topical issues in health and the law as an area of practice and guide on the ULS intervention in this area.
On the 15thday of February 2019, the Health and the law cluster had an evening chat to discuss,as a topical issue, health and the law through the lens of media practitioners.The Health and the Law cluster members had a face to face interaction with journalists on challenges they face while investigating health and the law issues in Uganda and discussed how best the Uganda Law Society through the Health and the Law Cluster can support them even as they undertake investigations on controversial topics.
This meeting brought together media persons, medical practitioners and lawyers to discuss legal issues affecting health in Uganda especially looking at access to health goods and medicines in light of the current stock outs and theft of drugs. The journalists complained of police harassment and lack of capacity in terms of knowledge of the law when they are carrying out their work.
We were able to increase awareness on the health and the law issues among lawyers since this is a one of kind meeting with the health and the law cluster of the Uganda Law society which is a start of many more to come.The cluster committed to be available for providing legal aid to medical personnel and journalists promoting the right to health. This will in turn create synergies between the lawyers in the cluster and the medical professionals and journalists.
By Laker Gloria
The news of Rebecca Kadaga, the speaker of Uganda’s parliament admission at Nakasero Hospital and later being transferred to Aga Khan hospital in Nairobi for medical treatment brought back a painful memory of my late aunt’s experience at the Uganda Cancer Institute.
I remember around 2017, my late aunt a cancer patient went to the cancer institute at around 6am in the morning and spent the whole day there. When she finally got to see the doctor at around 9pm it was too late, the doctor who was removing his hand gloves told her that she was to be seen the next day. The next day she still could not see the doctor and decided to go back to the village.
When her condition got worse while in Lira, I and other family members got into a debate on whether we should have our aunt brought back to the Cancer Institute or not because her past experience at the facility took the entire day and she was not attended to. That debate left me wondering why we have national referral hospitals just in names and not in functions.
History has it that the late president Amin, Lady Sarah Nalule Kisosonkole and Sir Tito Winyi IV (former Omukama of Bunyoro) were at one time admitted at Mulago National Referral Hospital to receive medical treatment. It was also reported at one time in the newspapers that the Rtd. Bishop of Busoga Diocese, the Rev. Cyprian Bamwoze, who had spent a week bedridden at Kamuli District Hospital, declined transfer to Mulago National Referral Hospital in order to show confidence in Kamuli district hospital.
Why should then a section of persons be given special treatment by government in the names of being ‘Very Important Persons’ (VIPs) and given privileges to access the best medical services in ‘uptown’ private medical facilities and abroad. What about others who are not ‘Very Important Persons’? The government should perform its core minimum obligation and ensure that its public health care facilities function by among others, providing it with enough human resources and tool of work.
This also brings in another question of how the proposed national health insurance scheme will function and how public health facilities will compete with the ‘uptown’ private health facilities. If government already prefers to take its VIPs to private facilities and abroad, how then will the beneficiaries of the scheme have confidence to access medical treatment from public health facilities?
In the words of Solomon Serwanja, a journalist with NBS TV “injustice in our society will continue as long as we all remain too afraid to lose the little privileges”. The VIPs should not be afraid to challenge government to do more for the public health facilities.
By Komakech Job
The Center for Health, Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) is implementing the Uganda Country Programme on HIV, TB and Human Rights Training and Advocacy in partnership with Uganda ARASA partners including; International Community of Women living with HIV Eastern Africa (ICWEA), Uganda Network on Law, Ethics and HIV/AIDS (UGANET), Uganda Harm Reduction Network (UHRN), African Young Positives Network (AY+) and Tororo Forum for People Living with HIV Networks (TOFPHANET) with financial and technical support from the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA)
The Country Programme is aimed at promoting access to quality, affordable and timely HIV, TB, and SRH services and justice among communities of persons living with and those affected by HIV and TB and key populations in Uganda and this will be achieved through three major approaches: Research for evidence building; Capacity strengthening to increase demand and uptake of services; and Advocacy to influence policy development, change and or implementation.
Under the approach of evidence building, CEHURD in collaboration with Uganda Ministry of Health (MoH) and partners conducted a “Rapid assessment and mapping of the legal environment on the provision of HIV and TB services to key populations, persons living with HIV and those with tuberculosis: A Case of three districts in Uganda” a process that began in October, 2018.
A number of stakeholders including MoH technical team, Parliamentarians, district officials including; District Health Officers (DHOs), Secretaries for Health, HIV and TB Focal Persons from the five selected districts, Professional bodies, legal experts, CSOs, media were brought together on February, 21st 2019 to validate the study findings which were also presented to the Communicable Diseases Control (CDC) Technical Working Group (TWG) at MoH on February, 22nd 2019 for more comments and inputs that will inform the final report.
The research process has helped to strengthen our in country partnership as the ARASA partners but also the collaborations with Ministry of Health, Local Governments, Legislators, CSOs among other stakeholders. The draft report also already clearly highlighted the knowledge and capacity gaps on the linkage between HIV, TB and Human Rights and these will be addressed during the forthcoming trainings in the respective districts. Most importantly the final report will serve as an advocacy and resource mobilization tool for future intervention.
By Muhumuza Abdulkharim
