Congratulations and thank you to you all who participated at the just concluded Free Medical Camp (FMC) at Akampala, in Ochero Kaberamaido District. The Camp event took place from the 12th to 14th July 2023. Your participation made this meaningful event a success. It greatly contributed to the raising of hope among our people that we care for everyone. Soroti University is getting to there as part of its Community Outreach Service. This was a significant milestone that will give a strong impetus to further deepening our resolve to look forward towards expanding this Camp service at the same and other sites. As a University, we are going to provide every possible assistance we can to ensure the continuity of the Camp Service. We detected our gaps and we shall use knowledge gained for improving the quality of service next time. Lessons learnt included the need to scale up the service and the need to be going back to the same place resources permitting. We invite partners including beneficiaries to come and support us so that we expand this kind of service.
Akampala is one of the landing sites found in Kaberamaido district. The place is disadvantaged in terms of health service delivery, with the nearest health centre II about 11Km away from the landing site, HCIII 22 Km away and the district hospital where emergency surgical and medical procedures can take place being about 55km away from the landing site, coupled with poor road network and inadequate/unclear transport services/means. This makes it very difficult for the population to access primary and emergency health care services such as maternal and child health services, reproductive health services and emergency medical and surgical services.
Besides the primary and emergency health services, the population is at risk of neglected tropical diseases such as schistosomiasis and onchocerciasis and non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.
During the 3 day medical camp, the University managed to provide free medical services to about 1000 people in the landing site and the neighboring communities. The services provided included general medical screening, laboratory tests, diagnosis and treatment for those found to be sick. We screened and treated the community for hypertension, diabetes, urinary tract infections, schistosomiasis, intestinal worm infections, malaria, hepatitis B, TB, Syphilis and HIV/AIDS. We also provided free antenatal care to about 100 pregnant women who came for these services.
I thank Kaberamaido District Health Department for taking part in providing this service, the leadership of the Catholic Church for allowing us to use their church as a temporary clinical room, area LCI and VHTs for community mobilization.
I thank the Department of Public Health of Soroti University for planning and coordinating this activity, the Dean School of Health sciences, all his staff and the medical students for actively participating, the support staff (drivers, accounts team), the university health department for active participation and the university administration for facilitating the event.
I also thank the press, more so Dwonwa radio services, Luo TV services, NBS, new vision and monitor publication services.
Thank you
Prof. J.R. Ikoja Odongo
Vice Chancellor
Mob. 0773295294 / 0704901939
Email: vc@sun.ac.ug
