Children have a very special place in our heart here at UCSS. So much of what we do is geared towards helping build up our next generation because children are Uganda’s future. Unfortunately, Uganda is challenged with high child mortality, but we are committed to save as many children as possible.
I wanted to quickly outline our plan to take care of our children and keep them healthy.
- UCSS will need to educate the rural people about how to provide decent shelter and food for their families from extremely limited resources, avoid preventable illnesses to their children, and when and how to seek medical care . Specifically, UCSS will continuously educate women about health and disease issues relating to prenatal care, basic hygiene, nutrition and immunization.
- We will focus our education on the leading causes of infant mortality, which include: birth asphyxia, pneumonia, pre-term birth complications diarrhoea, malaria, measles and malnutrition.
- We will reduce birth asphyxia by ensuring that there are effective resuscitation at birth facilities near the rural places.
- We shall strive to prevent pneumonia by ensuring that the children are vaccinated, provided with antibiotics and oxygen (to those children already suffering from pneumonia), and encouraging mothers to breastfeed their babies.
- We will mitigate the problem of pre-term birth complications by encouraging mothers to keep low-birth-weight babies warm by skin-to-skin contact with the mother, and providing free wrappings to keep the baby warm.
- We will prevent diarrhoea by encouraging mothers to breastfeed and by providing oral rehydration salts combined with zinc supplements to treat the sick children with, We shall tackle the malaria problem by supplying insecticide-treated bed nets and encouraging mothers to use them.
- We will tackle measles by providing timely vaccines to all children. Finally, we will meet the malnutrition challenge by emphasising to mothers what their children should be fed on to attain a balanced diet from the food resources in the community.
How We Will Save More Children
For UCSS to successfully intervene in these critical areas, it will use its healthcare team of a doctor, nurses, clinical officers and community healthcare workers to lead the women education programme, in partnership with district and Ministry of Health officials. The team will work closely with the community and address key issues such as ensuring the children are fed the right foods, they are taken for vaccination, all the people use clean and safe water, the bathrooms are kept clean at all times, and the garbage is disposed of from the home environment. Importantly, team members observe the WHO strategy of delivering Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by providing appropriate home care and timely treatment of complications for newborns, complementing health authorities by participating in the expanded programme on immunization, and promoting infant and young child feeding. Equally important, the healthcare team will adopt other interventions for maternal health, such as expert care during pregnancy and childbirth. We will collaborate with other health staff from the Ministry of Health and other partners to look after mothers’ health during pregnancy to prevent deficiencies in Iron, Iodine and Vitamin A.
UCSS will also keep installing water wells in vulnerable communities to give mothers a chance of providing clean water for their children. We will also strive to continue providing quality life through various interventions for marginalised areas, in line with our vision.
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Thank you for all of your prayers and support!
Dr. Ronald Kaluya