Government urged to increase funding for healthcare

Stakeholders have asked government to increase the funding allocated to Primary Health Care to benefit all members of the society.

Speaking on Monday during a workshop organized by the Uganda Youth and Adolescents Health Forum(UYAHF ) and in partnership with PATH Uganda, Population Action International, and Ministry of Health on the strategies about the promotion of community participation in Uganda’s Primary Health Care services, participants said the funding is still down .

According to Dr. David Musoke from the department of Disease control and Environment Health at the Makerere University School of Public Health College, special interest groups and hard-to-reach areas have not been catered for under the Primary Health Care program.

He noted that this has seen many of them lag behind in implementing the program, adding that there is need for joint efforts for all sector players.

According to Dr.Jonathan Wangisi, the District Health Officer for Mbale, the Village Health Teams and peer educators are poorly facilitated to implement the Primary Health Care program.

"Our coverage in terms of the health sector is about 80% of the population with people staying in a radius of 5Km range. However, there are sub -counties and other administrative units which don't have even a single government health facility and this makes it difficult to implement the Primary Health Care program,”Wangisi said.

Patrick Mwesigye the team leader at Uganda Youth and Adolescent Health Forum(UYAHF) said there is need for capacity building for communities to be able to avoid preventable diseases without first waitng for health experts.

"Primary Health Care is a health initiative that can be ideally managed by communities if well managed and sensitized to do the same,” he said.

He re-echoed the need for more funding for the Primary Health Care program to ensure it benefits the population.