KTNET Africa Summary blogs for April 2016

By Angela Kisakye

Last week we read form Dr. Getnet Alemu based in Ethiopia about the key lessons that could be borrowed from the implementation of the Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI) program in achieving Universal Health Coverage. In his blog, Dr. Alemu emphasized the importance of quality in health care provision as measured by the availability of equipment/drugs/diagnostic facilities, waiting time to get medical services in the contracted health facilities as key contributors to the scale up of CBH.  In addition, availability of a proper governance structure linking health care delivery at all levels was emphasized as key in ensuring expansion of CBHI schemes. Enhancing the financial sustainability of the schemes, Monitoring and follow up system as well as managing complaints were stated as the other factors in the implementation and scale-up of CBHI schemes in LMICs. Read on for the full blog. Please see the French version here.     

In another blog, Ms Angela Kisakye shared with us the importance of working together to improve health outcomes. She shared the contribution of Ugandans towards fistula treatment for women who would otherwise die in shame and social discrimination with the devastating effects of fistula.  Thousands of Ugandans contributed to fistula treatment through a fundraising drive that was organized as a run to celebrate the king of Buganda’s birthday. Read on here. Please follow this link for the French version.

Lastly, we read about the use of existing resources for health promotion in rural Uganda basing on the findings from the CoHeRe PhD projects. On 5^th April, 2016 the Knowledge Translation Network Africa supported researchers from the CoHeRe coalition in Uganda to disseminate finding from their PhD projects. CoHeRe’s interventions have aimed at identifying and developing sustainable interventions in poor communities in Uganda based on existing knowledge and services and using the natural characteristics of social groups, networks, and roles, including communication processes and motivational systems. The dissemination meeting was attended by researchers from the University of Amsterdam, Makerere University Uganda as well as stakeholders from the Ministry of Health Uganda, Ministry of Gender and Social Development and Luwero district community representatives. Researchers shared findings that were generated after conducting ethnographic research in communities in Luwero District. Overall the researchers focused on the importance of using community resources and networks to harness improve health care in rural settings in Uganda.  Read on here for the full article in English. French version here.