UNGA77: "Creating Empowerment Model in Global Health" is a new series featuring the formal presentations of panelists from our Global Health Program who spoke at the Science Summit at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA77) on September 21, 2022.
Written by Robert Kalyesubula, MD, PhD, founder and president of the African Community Center for Social Sustainability (ACCESS)
Toward Decolonizing Global Health Education: ACCESS Model
Non communicable diseases (NCDs) are a major threat to our community with one in four adults having high blood pressure. We unfortunately did not have any clinics well-equipped to manage NCDs. To deal with this epidemic, we have collaborated with Charite Hospital in Germany, Nuvance Health/University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine, Johns Hopkins GH Program, Yale University and Partners for ACCESS, all in the USA as well as Makerere University in Uganda to establish a center of excellence in management of NCDs in Nakaseke.
Through this collaboration we have trained community health workers (CHWs) to screen for hypertension, diabetes, chronic lung diseases, and kidney diseases. Patients identified by CHWs are referred for further management to health facilities. This project has so far screened 16,000 individuals and helped set up three NCD clinics, two of which are currently supported by the Uganda Ministry of Health. We currently provide care for 960 patients with NCDs and have six funded research projects focused on prevention as well as management of NCDs in rural communities.
We have faced many challenges from disagreement with donors on management of the program—as an example, when a donor wanted to replace a key manager in our program—to occasional visitors poorly prepared to live in a rural setting. We have learned from these experiences to strengthen our program.
Part III will be posted next week.
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