Outreach

Thousands of children receiving health care

The basis of the work of the Wellspring Children’s Medical Centre is as a COMMUNITY project. Hence emphasis of the work revolves around an outreach programme. This programme includes the following:

• Community health workers. 10 volunteer community health workers have been recruited to work with the staff of the Wellspring Medical Centre. These local volunteers work in the villages, following up children who have been admitted onto the day case unit or returned to the village after referral to one of the hospitals. They take drugs and basic supplies into the villages and provide health education and advice on health and hygiene issues. They are trained at the medical centre and report back to a supervisor on a regular basis.
• Nursing staff from the medical centre travel once or twice a week into the outlying villages using the Wellspring ambulance as transport. They provide vaccinations to young children together with worming tablets and vitamins. Babies are weighed and advice is given on general health care. Supplies of mosquito nets and health and hygiene materials are also distributed at these outreach clinics.
• The proposed maternity services will also be mainly implemented through an outreach programme with a qualified midwife providing advice and practical support to pregnant women in the villages. Sadly, over 12,000 women die in child birth annually and an estimated 45,000 babies die within their first 4 weeks of life each year, in rural Uganda. Just Care aims to reduce these risks by providing maternity services from the Wellspring Medical Centre.
• In addition, 50% of children born HIV+ve sill die before they reach 2 years of age. These risks can be reduced by 75% if pregnant women know their HIV status and those +ve are treated with ARVs (antiretroviral drugs) during pregnancy and labour, with the infant at risk also receiving 3 weeks of ARVs.