Teenage Pregnancy in Uganda.

Theme: Teenage Pregnancy in Uganda.

Teenage pregnancy took the life of my childhood friend and Cousin Sister.

As statistics would have it, in Uganda, alarming rates of teenage pregnancies are becoming a major cause for worry to the women rights movement and a possible threat to national development. Pregnancy rates amongst teenage girls are quoted at 25% (Uganda Population Secretariat, 2011), making Uganda one of the countries with the highest rates of teenage pregnancies in Sub-Saharan Africa. At this age, it’s expected that any child should be acquiring an education which would brighten their future prospects; unfortunately, for many young women this is not the case.

The year 2003 will always be remembered as a year that snatched my only childhood friend and sister Ruth Ninyesiga out of this world. At a budding and fruitful age of 17 years she left a gap and a hole full of pain in my heart. Being born in a family of four with no sister to look up to, Ruth came in handy as a replacement. We grew up together, shared every little moment and smiles that kept me company even in the schools we attended together. My mother was glad I had found a reliable sister in Ruth. 

As fate would have it, Ruth became pregnant as she was about to sit for the senior four (UCE) exams. It was shocking and held me back for a while with tears in my eyes, Hard to believe as it were, it was real and in my face! She was asked to leave the school and my mother decided to get her another school to at least complete. Sadly Ruth was very disappointed with her-self and decided to have an abortion which took her life due to heavy bleeding!

My eyes are wet as I write this story because it’s vivid in my mind. Seeing my friend’s lifeless body gave me goose bumps. The picture is engraved in my head like a stamp. Ruth left me due to teenage pregnancy. However, some are lucky to go head and give birth to innocent children. As it were with Ruth, teenage mothers are often not able to complete secondary school which makes it difficult for them to find decent jobs to take care of themselves and their children. 

In Uganda, increased sexual abuse of children (at least 628 children are defiled per month) has become a major contribution to this evil. However, sometimes teenagers have consensual sex- (not protected) which can be blamed on the moral decay in the society and exposure to high level technology.

With Ruth’s experience I vowed to make her proud by achieving the dream that we had all vowed to get to. She wanted to be a lawyer and fight for rights of the needy and poor. Despite the sadness that will never leave my heart, I wear a smile for having managed to make her proud. I’m now a young lawyer working in an NGO Human Rights department ensuring that Ruth lives on through me. The story inspired me to be part of the young youth activists who inspire other young people not to be diverted and work hard to achieve their dreams they set out to achieve.

Uganda has put in place various policies to address teenage pregnancies but like many other policies, these have largely remained on paper and implementation has been very minimal. The National Adolescent Policy states that pregnant adolescent girls should be readmitted to school after they have delivered their children but this does not happen in most cases. Often, schools are not willing to re-admit a teenage mothers claiming that such students would set bad examples for the rest of the students. Teenage mothers face stigma, from their peers, families and even their teachers. 

The Government needs to ensure the policies in place are implemented; teenagers are sensitized about the dangers of teenage pregnancies, impact on their studies, future, families and communities they live in. Teenagers too have a role to play in ensuring that they are empowered and that their different potentials are not brought to a halt by getting involved in risky sexual behavior at a young tender age. Parents too should ensure that their children are educated on the evils of early pregnancies and not leave the job for the teachers. Teenage pregnancies are real; together we can fight for our uninterrupted future.  

If it wasn’t for the teenage pregnancy that took Ruth’s life at a tender age, am sure she would have been here to share the success that we all hoped to achieve. Through me, Ruth’s dream is ALIVE. 

Teenage Pregnancies are real. Together we can avoid them.

Written by: Adellah Agaba

adellah_agaba@yahoo.com

Mob: 0782/0702 - 171265.

The 2013/14 National budget falls short of promoting access to health facilities by the poor

The 2013/14 National budget falls short of promoting access to health facilities by the poor

Investment in the health sector is considered to be key for a country’s economic development. In 2013/2014 financial year, the government under the health sector will focus on reducing morbidity and mortality from the major causes of ill health and premature death and to reduce the disparities in the provision of health services. To achieve this, a number of interventions have been proposed, some of which include; recruitment of key health personnel to ensure adequate staffing, provision of staff housing for health workers with special attention to under-served areas, and improving the governance and efficiency in health service delivery through joint supervision and monitoring in collaboration with non-Governmental health institutions among others.
In the next financial year, the budget for the health sector is projected to rise from Ushs 852.2billion in FY 2012/13 to 940.4 billion in FY 2013/14, implying an increment of Ushs 88.2billion in nominal terms. Despite the nominal increment, the health sector share proportion of the national budget is projected to decline from 7.8% in 2012/13 to 7.4% next financial year, which is far below the Abuja declaration target of 15%. The increment in the sector budget is largely due to the increase in the recurrent budget which is projected to increase by about Ushs 45.6 billion. This increase is projected to consume over 63% of the sector budget, implying that the administrative costs remain high as a proportion of the sector budget, which is a major concern for the much needed investment required in the sector infrastructure, since less of these resources will be spent on actual service delivery. This perhaps explains why some health indicators are still poor. For instance, deliveries in health centres currently stand at about 40%, still below the 50% HSSIP target for 2011/12, infant and  maternal mortality are still high in the country among others.

With new tax proposals announced by the Finance Minster, the situation in the health sector is likely to worsen especially for those living in rural areas. The proposals to increase excise duty on petrol and diesel by 50/= and the increase in motorcycle registration fees by 70,000/= will affect access to health facilities by rural poor households since it will translate into an increase in bodaboda fares as the tax will be transferred to the final customer. Since boda bodas are the most common means of transport used in most rural areas to transport patients and expectant mothers to health facilities, this will affect access to health facilities by the poor households. Hence, the 88.2billion increment in the health sector is virtually meaningless to communities if they cannot access health facilities.

Government should invest more in Referral Hospitals FY 2013/14

Government should invest more in Referral Hospitals FY 2013/14

By Adellah Agaba

The National Health Policy is driven by the National Development Plan (NDP) which provides thematic areas of development including health, education, water and sanitation, agricultural production and human resources development and management.

The mission of the health sector is to attain a good standard of health for all people in Uganda. Sadly, geographical access to health care has been limited to about 49% of the population.

As a strategy to bring health services closer to the people, decentralization of health services was encouraged with an aim of taking services closer to the people and improve geographical access, particularly to the rural poor. The aim was further to lead to improved options for target group oriented health service delivery, and more transparency and accountability through closer responsibilities by the poor in rural areas.

However, the poor health facilities in health centres have left patients with no alternative but to go to referral hospitals leading to overcrowding and easy spread of disease. On a daily Mulago referral hospital among others receive an overwhelming number of patients’ per-day most of them from rural areas. This has taken a heavy toll on health service delivery at referral hospitals in Uganda. Any hospital, including a district hospital, will receive referrals from lower levels of care.  Referral hospitals come into play where health care providers at lower levels of the health system, lack the skills, the facilities, or both to manage a given clinical condition hence seek the assistance of providers at the referral hospitals.

Shockingly with the day to day increasing number of patients in the referral hospitals in Uganda, working conditions of health workers have become very difficult, characterized by poor infrastructure, lack of staff accommodation, inadequate equipment and supplies, work overload and inadequate remuneration. These poor working conditions do not attract staff nor motivate them to stay making it hard to have services adequately delivered to the intended beneficiaries in the hospitals.

It should be remembered that health is a key element of social and economic growth and its one of the major sectors that can directly impact on poverty eradication. With the budget for the health sector projected to rise from Ushs 852.2billion in FY 2012/13 to 940.4 billion in FY 2013/14, a lot of expectations from the citizens will have to be put into consideration. The health sector share proportion of the national budget is projected to decline from 7.8% in 2012/13 to 7.4% next financial year, and is far below the threshold of 15% agreed upon by African leaders in the Abuja declaration of 2001.

In Financial Year 2013/14, Government should invest more in referral hospitals and equip them with the basic drugs and facilities and ensure services are easily accessible to all citizens.