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Posted on Categories Featured 25 Comments on Saving the Youth: Sexual Reproductive Health Literacy Training Training on SRH

Saving the Youth: Sexual Reproductive Health Literacy Training Training on SRH

By Serunjogi Francis, Communications Officer

Participants in the Sexual Reproductive Health training during the life cycle mapping
Participants in the Sexual Reproductive Health training during the life cycle mapping

According to the Uganda demographic survey, 26.4% of the girls between the ages of 15 and 19 are sexually active and can readily give birth. On the other hand, 16 million girls under the age of 16 years give birth each year worldwide (United Nations Populations fund). A community intervention recommended that if the girl child is to be protected, early sexual reproductive health literacy training should be done.

This should be complemented with creation of awareness on contraception use, accessibility and availability of reproduction health services. This will save these young people from getting โ€œunwantedโ€ pregnancies, and will also avail them with basic knowledge about HIV AIDS and other STIs. Creating awareness through sensitization programs is highly recommendable.

Interventions can include, making out reaches to education institutions by different stake holders to talk to students about sexual reproductive health and can create more impact if parents and teachers are involved. On the other hand, having students in closed sessions with health practitioners make it easier for them to open.

On 6th June 2013 the Center for Health Human Rights and Development (CEHURD) organized a Health Literacy Program in the Districts of Kiboga and Kyankwanzi. The aim of the training was to facilitate community participation in improving sexual reproductive health (SRH) for the youth of Mulagi, Wattuba and Gayaza sub-counties using the Participatory Reflection Action (PRA) processes.

The programme was carried out in Buyimbaazi Senior secondary school and aimed at improving youth knowledge in SRH and to strengthen relations with health workers and the health system in general by engineering discussions on youth friendly services.

The training included technical and vocational schools which enabled to reach out to youth that are not in secondary schools for reasons such as dropping out of school due to early teenage pregnancy.

According to Nantaba Juliana, the programme Officer, Community Empowerment Programme at CEHURD, โ€œHealth literacy refers to peopleโ€™s ability to obtain, interpret and understand basic health information and health services and to use such information and services in ways that promote their health.โ€

The Health Literacy program gives an all-inclusive approach to SRH with the perspective that the boy child too has a role to play. This draws away from the common Health Literacy on SRH that is only focused to the girl child.

Generally it is important to mobilize the wider communities to join efforts to meet the sexual reproductive health needs of the youth. Emphasis should be put on both girls and boys.

Posted on Categories Featured 76 Comments on 5 die daily as Jinja hospital runs out of blood

5 die daily as Jinja hospital runs out of blood

blood-transfusionWritten by TREVOR S BALEKE, An acute shortage of blood has hit Jinja Regional referral hospital. There is no single blood unit available to give patients in critical condition, hospital managers say.

The Observer has established that on average, 12 patients are referred to Mulago hospital daily for blood transfusions. Dr Micheal Osinde, the hospital director, said in an interview last Thursday that at least five children die every day in the children’s ward due to the blood shortage. The casualty ward and pregnant mothers are also affected.

“This is the worst the blood shortage there has ever been. And because this is a regional referral hospital, we receive patients from about 10 districts,” he said.

According to him, it costs $80 to process one unit of blood. Jinja regional referral hospital needs at least 70 units of blood in a crisis-free week.

“We do not just get blood from a donor and transfuse it into the body of a recipient. It has to be processed first,” he said.

“We don’t have a single pint of blood for all the groups in the laboratory,” he said.

Asked what could have caused the shortage, Dr Osinde pinned it on funding gaps in the ministry. He said the Uganda Blood Transfusion Service had run short of money to collect, process and store blood by last December.
Source: http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=25522:5-die-daily-as-jinja-hospital-runs-out-of-blood&catid=34:news&Itemid=114

 

Posted on Categories Featured, News 241 Comments on Civil Society Petitions EU Delegation Over LDC TRIPS Extension

Civil Society Petitions EU Delegation Over LDC TRIPS Extension

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

23rd ย May, 2013

1WIPO-615x461Uganda, Kampala โ€“ Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working on issues of trade, intellectual property, access to medicines, food & Seed in Uganda have issued a letter to the World Trade Organizationโ€™s (WTO) Council Chair as well as Developed country Missions in Uganda to express their disapproval of the manner in which the negotiations for the request to extend the time within which Least Developed Countries (LDCs) can enforce Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS).

On November 2012, Haiti (the then chair of LDCs at the TRIPS Council) submitted a request on behalf of all LDCs to the WTO TRIPS Council for an extension of the LDC transition period until a Member ceases to be a LDC. This request has received overwhelming support from developed countries like Norway, academics from around the world, 5 representatives of the US Senate, and civil society groups from developed, developing and least developed countries..

It is infuriating to note, however, that over the past few months, the WTO has been chairing informal meetings between developed countries and least developed countries where LDCs have been pressed to agree to a shorter term of 5 – 7.5 years and the inclusion of a provision to not roll back their current intellectual property laws without admitting groups that support them to the meetings.

The Director of the Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development, Mulumba Moses, has expressed dissatisfaction at these developments, โ€œThis is unacceptable as the TRIPS Agreement states that upon a duly motivated request, the TRIPS council shall grant an extension. LDCs to which Uganda is categorised are justified in seeking an unlimited extension for so long as they are so classified because the suggested 5-7 years will not give us adequate time to overcome capacity constraints to develop a viable and competitive technological base.โ€

It should also be noted that almost 90% of drugs in Uganda are imported, the majority of which are generic versions from India. India, like Uganda, is a party to the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). As per requirements under TRIPS, India grants product patents for drugs and pharmaceuticals while Uganda does not. This has impacted the accessibility and affordability of cheap lifesaving drugs as Uganda does not have the capacity to provide drugs for its entire population.

Mr, Joshua Wamboga from The Aids Support Organisation (TASO) notes, โ€œThe ability to access cheap medicines on the market will be curtailed and the fight against HIV/AIDS in Uganda may be lost if expansive trade laws are adopted without improving the incomes of Ugandans.โ€.

The next TRIPS Council meeting will be held on 10-11 June, 2013 but United States, European Union, and Australia are currently in informal meetings aggressively trying to pressure LDCs to keep in place the โ€œno roll-backโ€ provision that prevents LDCs from changing their existing laws, even if they were adopted from the colonial era or new laws that have proven bad for development.

Posted on Categories Featured, General News 2 Comments on CREATIVITY: The Next Generation Solution For Life Saving Medicines In Uganda

CREATIVITY: The Next Generation Solution For Life Saving Medicines In Uganda

The celebration of World Intellectual Property day to day, provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the importance of intellectual property (IP) in the lives of ordinary Ugandans. Indeed flexible intellectual property laws and policies have increasingly become relevant in todayโ€™s discussions on access to essential commodities which are critical in an economy such as ours.

As this yearโ€™s theme [Creativity: The Next Generation] suggests, we need to highlight the importance of intellectual property policy, legal and institutional frameworks in ensuring an environment for creativity while at the same time addressing the potential of intellectual property to enhance the quality of the daily lives of the people of Uganda today and the generations to come.

The World Intellectual property day also offers us a chance to reflect on the opportunities provided by Articles 7 and 8 of the World Trade Organizationโ€™s Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement. Article 7 of this Agreement provides that the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights SHOULD contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology in a manner conducive to social and economic welfare. On the other hand, Article 8 gives the countries liberty to adopt measures necessary to protect public health and nutrition, and to promote the public interest in sectors of vital importance to their socio-economic and technological development while formulating or amending their laws and regulations. This position was also re-affirmed in the 2001 Declaration at Doha that โ€œthe TRIPS Agreement DOES NOT and SHOULD NOT prevent Members from taking measures to protect public health.โ€

See full statement hereMEDICINES

Posted on Categories Featured 86 Comments on Contraceptives can reduce the number of unsafe abortions

Contraceptives can reduce the number of unsafe abortions

By Henry Zakumumpa

More than half of all pregnancies in Uganda are unintended and nearly a third of them end in abortion, according to survey results unveiled by Dr Charles Kiggundu, a consultant gynaecologist at Mulago hospital.

“Probably half of all of you seated in front of me today were not intended by your parents,โ€™โ€™ Dr Kiggundu told a fully- packed Palm conference room at Kabira Country Club in the outskirts of Kampala.

The study results released by the US-based, Guttmacher Institute and the Centre of Health, Human Rights and Development, also reveal that Ugandan women on average wished they had at least two children less, a phenomenon also called excess fertility.

On average, each woman in Uganda gives birth to 6.7 children which is high even by Sub-Saharan African standards. The study results are based on analysis of Ugandaโ€™s 2011 Demographic and Health Survey.

At the centre of the millions of unintended pregnancies in Uganda, is non-use of contraception.

Only an estimated 25 per cent of women in Uganda have access to modern contraception methods pointing to a staggering lack of access to modern and safe contraception.

One in three married women in Uganda had an unmet need for contraception according to the survey results.

“It is also a question of having less options of contraception,โ€™โ€™ added Dr Frederick Mugisha, a health economist, who maintained that Ugandan women do not have many choices when it comes to contraception.

Clearly, investments targeted at increasing access to family planning and contraception for women of reproductive age in Uganda would save the country phenomenal sums of monies spent on treating post abortion complications and having fewer mouths to feed, educate and would be kinder to the environment. If all Ugandan women had met their wish of having two children less than they currently have, the population of Uganda would have been undoubtedly impacted by gains in per capita income and a better quality of life achieved for millions of Ugandans.

It emerged at the meeting that myths and misconceptions about modern contraception methods causing cancer and fibroids is widespread and is a barrier to contraception utilisation by Ugandan women.

The traditional medicinemen have hijacked contraception education. There are several programmes on local radio and television stations that are misinforming many women on safe contraception in preference for crude and riskier methods.

Dr Zainab Akol of the Ministry of Health regretted that the medical profession in Uganda has ceded the ground for offering scientific and evidence-based contraception information to misinformed โ€œmedicine menโ€ on whose inaccurate advice many rural and uneducated women depend for decisions on birth control and family planning.

Unsafe abortion and contraception is a human rights, public health, legal and moral issue in Uganda that must be addressed,โ€™โ€™ emphasised Moses Mulumba, head of the Centre for Health, Human Rights and Development, who revealed that 26 per cent of all maternal deaths are attributed to unsafe abortion.

Prof Ben Twinomugisha, dean of the School of Law at Makerere University, emphasised that human beings have a right to enjoy sex and then when debating issues surrounding abortion, โ€œthe woman should be at the centreโ€ of the debate.

Studies done by the Guttmacher institute show that there is a co-relation between restrictive laws on birth control and increased abortion. Countries, especially in Europe, which have a liberal stance on birth control have fewer deaths from unsafe abortions and spend less on post abortion complications.

Source: http://www.monitor.co.ug/artsculture/Reviews/Contraceptives-can-reduce-the-number-of-unsafe-abortions/-/691232/1712464/-/13kqg7lz/-/index.html

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