UPDATE! Child and Pregnant Woman Health Subsidy Program

The bottom-line: In the past year this program has provided essential medical care for 5,234 people in Northern Uganda, an average of 436 people every month. All totaled, since it began, this program has provided medical care to over 15,000 people (including over 14,500 children).

  • Since December of 2014 Asteroidea has been partnering with the Northern Ugandan community-based organization the Northern Uganda Medical Mission (NUMEM). The first program born of this collaboration was Asteroidea’s Child and Pregnant Woman Health Subsidy Program.

  • Initially the program covered 30% of all costs for children under-5 seeking care at the NUMEM Health Centre. Throughout the years this program has expanded, both in terms of the population of patients it covers as well as the extent of that coverage. Today the program covers all children 10 & under and all pregnant women. Moreover, it now not only covers 30% of all costs incurred by these patients, it also includes the guarantee that no patient from within these groups will ever pay more than 10,000 Ugandan Schillings (about $2.70 US) for their health care when they visit the NUMEM Health Centre. Asteroidea pays all expenses in excess of this amount for these patients.

  • This program has helped the NUMEM Health Centre reach an increasing number of patients. Prior to the initiation of this program in December 2014, the NUMEM Health Centre had been seeing less than 12 patients per day (which works out to about 4,300 per year). Yet, this past year the NUMEM Health Centre saw 10,631 patients, which is approximately 29 patients arriving at the health centre every day. This represents a 142% increase since the beginning of Asteroidea’s subsidy program. When you combine the number of patients arriving at the clinic each day with the number of patients who are admitted to the health centre for 24 hour care, this averages out to approximately 48 patients receiving care each and every day.

  • The past quarter at the NUMEM Health Centre (June 2019 – August 2019) has been the busiest ever, with a total of 3,607 patients visiting the clinic. Including inpatients seen, this works out to approximately 70 patients per day receiving care. This represents an increase of 133% over the previous year during this same period.

 It costs approximately $5 US to cover health care for one child or pregnant mother under this program. Please consider making a contribution here to ensure that this program continues.

globalhealthAsteroidea Health Alliance, Inc.uganda, northernuganda, globalhealth, maternalhealth, childmortalityComment