Popular Posts
-
A few days ago, we visited our first school in Uganda! As an education major, this greatly excited me. It was raining in the morning and a b...
-
Students and Faculty from Drake will be returning to Kampala in May, 2010! The faculty are excited to return to Uganda and see our friends ...
-
The Drake University faculty and student participants in the 7 th annual Sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa study abroad program depart... -
Traveling to the Ndere Center, we were able to learn traditional music, dance, and drama in Uganda. We learned about the three different typ...
-
Everyone is finishing final exams and busy packing for our departure to Uganda in one week. The professors are looking forward to seeing al...
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Health Care in Uganda
Health care in U.S. is very different from health care in Uganda. For example, when a group of students and I visited the international hospital, Mulago, we were shocked! Many people were crammed in a small trauma unit and didn't have access to proper health care/medication. Regardless of the the care and attention the patients received at the hospital, they were smiling and excited to see us. At the Mengo Hospital people had access to either private care or public care. The private care insured better doctors and medicine, while the other didn’t. However, this is my view. How did the hospital make you feel? What do you thing should be changed about the health care field in Uganda?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Chintan I really enjoy your two questions and I am eager to answer them. To start, I felt very uncomfortable seeing so many people crammed into such a small area. Most all patients seemed to be positive given their circumstances, but I strongly felt they deserved more privacy and more sanitary conditions. To answer your question about what I would change about the health care, I am having a little difficulty answering that. I think it is just time and money. In conclusion, I am very happy to see how passionate you were about the health care in Uganda and can't wait to see what you do in the medical field.
ReplyDeleteChintan, I agree with you completely! Both experiences had me in complete shock. It was crazy that we could just walk though the different wards throughout the hospitals and just see so many patients (with no curtains between them) in one room. I believe that there needs to be a lot changed about the healthcare. Just from research I have done on my own, and talking to the MUBS students and faculty, there needs to be a lot implemented in the healthcare system in Uganda. I believe this needs to start with more government funding for the hospitals. There are so many people who suffer, and some even die waiting for treatment because doctors won't help them because they can not pay upfront for the care they will be receiving. There are many other issues, like not having malaria medication readily available. How is it possible that a country like Uganda, doesn't have medication for an infection that affects thousands of people every day. I could talk about the healthcare system here in Uganda forever, but thats just a little dip into what I have discovered during our time here in Uganda.
ReplyDeleteI only toured Mengo, but to me, the entire experience was shocking. I was so surprised that we were allowed to tour the hospital and go into such private areas without scrubs or even ensuring that we had washed our hands. It felt so open and scary to me, like any infection could be spread super easily. It was also very surprising that they didn't have an ICU or emergency room, because those seem like essentials to me. Overall it was a very different experience than American hospitals.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree a lot with Trey's comments. When touring the hospital even in a small group it was very eye-opening to see how crammed people were. There were about ten people in a very small room with little space in between each bed. These people were in the trauma center with very serious injuries and were forced to be right next to each other. I would hope to see a change in the cleanliness of facilities and more privacy for patients, especially in the big national hospitals.
ReplyDelete