Uganda: Healthcare Implementing Partner for UNHCR at Bidibidi Refugee Settlement

During this reporting period RMF:

• Continued to provide high-quality health services to persons of concern through the Outpatient department, Inpatient department, inpatient therapeutic care, outpatient therapeutic care, community outreaches, and referral services.
• Delivered mass polio immunization services to the refugee and host communities during community integrated outreaches.
• Recruited additional staff members (both medical and non-medical) for health implementation in Zone 3, which was handed over to RMF in July 2017. Over 172 staff members were recruited and have started working.
• Throughout the reporting period, RMF purchased medicines to treat patients and laboratory supplies to test for diseases. Medicines and testing helped save lives.
• RMF provided a constant flow of cleaning supplies, which enabled our diligent sanitary team to keep health facilities clean. The cleanliness of RMF-managed health facilities is among the reasons why many patients prefer receiving care from us.
• RMF actively supported World Breastfeeding Week. During this event, lactating mothers were taught best breastfeeding practices, cooking demonstrations were conducted for lactating mothers, etc.
• Treatment was provided to all patients that came to the health facilities. Patients with conditions that could not be handled at the health facilities within the settlement were referred to district and regional referral points, respectively.
• RMF continued to facilitate and manage routine immunization exercises in zones 1, 3, and 4 of Bidibidi Refugee Settlement. All the under-5 children arriving at the settlement are also immunized. This is a strategy to secure the future of these children, which is threatened by deadly diseases.
• Staff in the EPI (expanded program on immunization) department were given a refresher course to acquaint them with the new guidelines for EPI.
• All RMF-managed health facilities continued to provide antenatal, maternity, and family planning services, thus promoting institutional deliveries and safe motherhood. We have been able to achieve safe motherhood targets, thanks in part to the dignity kits provided by UNHCR and distributed by RMF at the health facilities during delivery.
• RMF continued facilitating an outreach program within the settlement. This is to ensure that health services are extended to people of concern in more distant villages of Bidibidi Refugee Settlement.
• Community health officers were given special training to empower them with community mobilization skills.
• RMF facilitated community leaders’ dialogues to help community leaders become ambassadors of good health practices. This will strengthen the preventive health initiative and thus reduce the cost of curative health.
• An incinerator and placenta pit were constructed at Bidibidi Reception Health Centre III. They have been sanctioned for use, thus achieving the minimum required standards of a health facility.
• Facilitated the disease surveillance teams’ activities so that the medical department will not be taken by surprise in case of an outbreak. Suspected samples of cholera, measles, and polio were rushed to the district laboratory for confirmation. This is partly why no outbreak was experienced during the reporting period.
• RMF has continued to sustain medical staff that were hired to support health centers neighboring Bidibidi Refugee Settlement. This has helped reduce the constraints felt in these health centers due to the dramatic increase in population and is contributing to peaceful coexistence between the refugee and host populations. District health facilities benefiting from this program include Yumbe Hospital, Barakala Health Centre III, and Kulikulinga Health Centre III.
• Continuous cervical cancer screening and education is ongoing at the health facilities. Those patients testing positive are referred to the regional referral points for further management (cervical biopsy for histology and cytology).
• RMF continued to provide HIV/AIDS testing, counseling, and ARV services and encourage all patients to practice healthy lifestyles. The team also continued to trace patients who were previously on ART and work to reinstate them on treatment. The ART clinic is growing.
• RMF has maintained a highly skilled, dedicated medical team thanks to the prompt payment of salaries and wages, as well as RMF mentorship.
• RMF has continued to sustain a medical team at the Goboro border point, providing medical screening, immunization, treatment, and ambulance services to refugees who arrive exhausted.