Problem
Health is a universal fundamental Human Right. No one should get sick and die just because they are poor, or because they live too far from a health facility. However, half of the world's 7.8 billion people; including more than one billion people living in remote communities live without access to essential health services and 100 million are impoverished by health expenses every year.
Late access to care is a leading driver of maternal, child, and newborn death globally. While life-saving tools to stop millions of preventable deaths are well-proven and inexpensive, the great challenge in delivery is time. The traditional health systems are passive and reactive. Medical providers typically wait for patients to come to them through the door, often leaving behind the poor, who never make it to the door because of cross-cutting barriers to care. As in most of the world, Uganda's current health care delivery model is passive, with providers waiting for patients to come to them. Families often do not access care; when they do, they often receive care late. However, the later a patient gets prenatal care or treatment for diseases like malaria, diarrhea, or pneumonia, the more likely that patient is to die.
Our Solution
Proactive Heath Care. Infants' Health Foundation recognizes that to save lives in the world's poorest communities, a reactive model is not enough. Early access to care is crucial to survival. To address this challenge, we built a different kind of health system — one that removes barriers and brings care to patients proactively. Together with the communities we serve, Infants' Health Foundation developed a proactive health care system designed to save lives.
1: COMMUNITY ENTRY
We identify a rural district with limited health facilities, with impassable roads and where vast majority of the locals are forced to walk for many hours at a great cost to access a nearest health facility. We establish working relationship with various stake holders in the district including the District Health Department, community groups like women and youth groups. Together, we identify the existing remote hardest to reach villages in the district which are vulnerable and are underserved, and the existing nearby government health facilities for partnership.
2: PROACTIVE SEARCH
Community Health Workers and community members track for low income women of reproductive age who are likely to get pregnant-mostly the married ones, pregnant mothers-in early 1st trimester, recent and new mothers, and children of 0-5 in the chosen remote villages and those living nearer each other are mobilized, organized and clustered into manageable groups. They select a convenient place from where they always meet to receive our services. This can be a home of one member within the group or a public place like a school, church, mosque, community hall or a traditional homestead established by a family or clan. A mobile tent is always made available for especially mother checkups to ensure privacy.
3: HOME CARE
We then establish a system to conduct monthly, one-day comprehensive health clinics. Three to four government health workers including at least 1 midwife with medical supplies and medicine are transported by our motorcyclists to the chosen places so they can provide our maternal child healthcare services throughout pregnancy stages. At the end of the day health workers go back to the health facilities where they are based and return to the served villages next month to ensure continuity of the program. Each health worker is facilitated with travel allowances and stipends of $6.7 (UGX 25,000) in every outreach clinic. Our nurses in our comprehensive clinics provide antenatal checkups, vaccinations, birth information, postnatal checkups, child checkups, nutrition information and treatment, HIV tests, anti-retroviral referrals, family planning, pneumonia treatment, diarrhea treatment, malaria testing and treatment, Sexually Transmitted Infections testing and treatment, counselling, referrals, and other lifesaving services.
4: RAPID-ACCESS CLINICS
Infants’ Health Foundation removes point-of-care fees by evacuating the sickest patients including women in labour to government health facilities.
IHF is derived by the belief that; No mother and child should get sick and die just because they are poor, or because they live too far from a health facility. Access is fundamental to our mission and history. Our slogan is Saving Lives. Improving Health. Transforming Communities. IHF’s mission is to reduce the infant and mother mortality and morbidity in Uganda. Even though our story begins in the rural Uganda – Namayingo district, our vision is countrywide; A nation where the best maternal child health services and care is equally accessible to all. Health Can't Wait.