We have begun our journey towards a new type of medical mission! It is an empowering, community building approach to healthcare.
The Medical Mission
In Uganda, medical services and preventative care are often inaccessible.
In 2021, 350 children died each day due the often preventable/treatable illnesses of Malaria, Pneumonia, and diarrhea in part from lack of access to primary health care.
Other known facts:
- 1.6 million people live with HIV.
- Malnutrition is rampant and 53% of children under the age of 5 are anemic.
- 25% of females, age 10-19, have had a baby or are pregnant.
- Laboring mothers are turned away from hospitals if they do not bring their own supplies for their own delivery.
- Clinics are often understaffed and medications unavailable.
With 29% of rural Ugandans living in poverty and with such extreme lack of access to care, the suffering is very great.
Harmony Life’s goal is to face these issues head on and to provide long-term health care solutions.
Long-Term Impact
Our first project will be to build a clinic in Kyamosongi, Uganda, (near Fort Portal), as well as a guest house/ministry center, (to support the clinic). As we move forward, three values will remain constant in all that we undertake:
- Engage the community and determine what their needs are from their perspective.
- Hire locals to build and ensure the construction is sustainable (i.e. solar).
- Employ locals and provide instruction for them to become community practitioners (modeling the Alaska Community Health Aide Program).
- Partner with local universities to provide credit for the on the job clinical training.
- Teach locals how to be primary care providers, give them the skills to function well, and support them.
- Send periodic Medical Mission Teams.
- Continue to support the community practitioners via telehealth, ongoing indefinitely. This support would include daily “medical traffic” whereby a clinical expert from the United States reviews cases with the health workers and guides treatment.
- Support the local economy wherever possible. Buy local, integrate services within the local area and develop medical partnerships.
Medical Camp
Future Medical Mission Trips!
- Summer 2023
The focus of these teams is to instruct community health workers with a hands on clinical teaching approach. Teams will be multi-disciplinary. Community health workers will need to know how to take x-rays, perform labs, reconstitute medications, etc.
Medical mission team members will raise funds to cover their mission expenses as well as a portion of ongoing salaries of the community workers. Team members don’t just sign up for their time on the ground in Uganda. When they sign up for a mission with us they are agreeing to support the clinic for a minimum commitment of at least 5 additional days (2 hours per day max) of “medical traffic”.
Details of our medical missions would be similar to our Adventure Mission trips, with the addition of raising funds for ongoing clinic support and of course having a more intensive and focused mission related to medical service. As with our Adventure Missions, we also build in a day of rest to see a bit of the country of Uganda.
Interested in joining us? Give us a shout!
