International Support Aid Australia (ISAA) is seeking to establish a medical centre in Wanyange, Jinja that can reach out and provide much needed medical care for all the children in the program and for locals in that community that cannot afford medical care for their children. Malaria is still claiming so many lives and in particular young children who cannot afford or access basic treatment.
This project is directly related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); eight goals agreed to by the world’s countries and leading development institutions as a blueprint to meet the needs of the world’s poor by 2015.
Goal 4 – Reduce child mortality; Goal 5 – Improve maternal health; and Goal 6 – Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
The ability of countries to meet these three health-related goals is interlinked with their ability to meet the other MDGs relating to poverty reduction, literacy, gender equality and environmental sustainability and establishing a global partnership for development, with the achievement of one MDG impacting the others. In fact, the three health-related MDGs are particularly important to achieve, as healthy communities are dependant upon healthy children and adults, who are able to lead productive, active lives.
Ill health is both a leading cause and consequence of poverty. Ill health increases household expenditure due to medical expenses, results in loss of productivity and income through inability to work, and sees children miss out on schooling through both ill health and needing to look after sick family members. These costs of ill health are crippling to those already living in poverty, and can also rapidly see others fall into the trap of poverty. It is for these and many other reasons that tackling the health-related MDGs are so important.
Despite the fact that the health care infrastructure in Uganda remains fractured and hollow, with many facilities reporting shortages of staff, drugs and other supplies, and with access to health care by those most vulnerable members of the community, such as orphans and vulnerable children, remaining limited, it is encouraging to know that the health-related MDGs are still achievable in Uganda by 2015.
ISAA is keen to assist the communities in which we work in to meet these MDGs on a local level, and is actively supporting several local hospitals with medical supplies and financial support, and is working on establishment of a medical facility in the community in which we operate. However, we can only do this with your help. With the help of general public donations and corporate sponsors, ISAA can further develop our community medical centre and help to transform the lives of those whom we seek to help – the vulnerable, the orphans, the widows and the marginalised.