By Steven Enatu
SOROTI CITY
Expectant mothers drawn from within Soroti city and district have expressed joy as Teso safe motherhood reopens to begin offering medical services three months after it temporarily closed.
The facility that runs a trusted clinic and birth center for many of the marginalized population in the entire Teso had faced funding challenges and temporarily closed in September last year and this overwhelmed other facilities according to city authorities.
As early as 8am, patients and expected mothers had already stormed the facility for health services having got information that it was reopening today, 8th January, 2024.
Jenifer Apio from Otatai says the closure had frustrated their effort in accessing good maternal health services saying that they would go to Soroti regional hospital and find a huge number of patients and sometimes go back unattended to.
Miriam Alyeto, a 25 year old mother of a two year old born in the facility returned today again from Lale with her five month pregnancy.
She says that Teso safe motherhood is a facility with hygiene that allows mothers to freely go to places of conveniences unlike other facilities with huge populations and poor hygiene.
Aside from these, the mothers in this facility appreciate the midwives who attend to them with love.
“Other facilities you go to, you don’t get treatment timely and also the medical workers are rude but here they attend to us with love. When it was closed, we would go to main but the population there is big and getting treatment is challenging,” says Martha Agudo from Otatai ward in Soroti city East.
Charles Omoding is a man we caught up with at the facility, he had come with his wife for maternal services at the facility from Awaliwal Sub County in Soroti district. He says their two first children were born in the same facility.
“Here there is no much burden, we are attended to promptly without segregation, and its closure had caused us a lot because we would not get effective maternal services for our wives.” Omoding said.
Rebecca Amero, a 23 year old is another expectant mother we caught up with. She hails from Kamuda and it’s her second pregnancy she came with to the facility. The first child is two years old and she was produced safely in the facility.
“Here we are served with love, we are attended to well and they check different diseases like Malaria and infection like UTI among others. In other facilities we are only given Fansida” she noted.
Established in 2005, the project has always been consistent and committed to medical excellence, kindness and compassion to the local populace not until September 2023 when an internal disagreement emerged leading to its temporal closure according Martin Oteger the chief executive officer.
“We went to the drawing board as management meeting different stakeholders and it’s the reason we have resumed today operations, this facility serves the very needy population in this region. We do offer Laboratory services, antenatal, family planning services and Art clinic among others” he said.
He however disregarded allegations that the funding was mismanaged leading to donor withdrawal last year.
“Some individuals who had self-centered selfish interest led to the withdrawal of funding but not that there was mismanagement of donors,” Oteger said.
Retired Dr. Nicholas Okwana, the board chairman Teso safe motherhood disclosed that Aids Information center is one partner that will ensure that laboratory services, Arts clinic, maternal health and family planning services are offered to a normal running of the facility.
“Initially we had 51 health workers but we have not recalled all of them yet, we shall do that in phases as we also open here in phases. We are hopeful that in the next three months, we shall be operating in full capacity,” he noted.
James Obore, the Deputy City clerk Soroti noted that the closure of the facility for three months had hugely impacted on health facilities like Princess Diana, Obuku Health center three, Majengo and others.
“We had to immediately engage with the management, listen to their plea and we managed to get some partners on board. We shall continue to offer supervision and coordinated services with our partners to the community through this facility” Obore said.
James Small Chemutai, the deputy Resident City Commissioner Soroti city west underscored the relevance of the facility to the local populations quoting a situation where he was asked in Temele areas by the community if he had the power to reopen the facility of Teso safe motherhood.
“Health is first and without health, it would be hard for me to preach the gospel of social-economic transformation. People must be alive and healthy” he noted.
He challenged the facility management to look into options of ensuring that the project is sustain without entirely depending on donations that come from outside world.
While the country has the plan to have health facilities within a distance of 5km at 100% by 2025, many of the existing facilities do not offer services effectively as testified above by patients.
According to the 2022 Uganda Demographic Health Survey, the Maternal Mortality Ratio reduced from 336 to 189 per 100,000 live births while the infant mortality went from 43 to 34 per 1,000 live births.
The remote location of many communities coupled with poverty, rugged dirt roads and scarcity of resources create enormous health care challenges in Uganda including for expectant mothers hence a delay in seeking appropriate care.
