IWA community health services will improve access to health promotion and disease prevention among communities with limited access to health services. Improving community health will in addition reduce the need for hospital services. Further, a mobile community health outreach programme is necessary to educate communities about the use of safe and clean water, safe human excreta management, proper solid and liquid waste disposal, practicing good personal, domestic and food hygiene and promotion behavioural change and practices. It will also improve nutritional status of under-fives, children of school going age, women of reproductive age, the elderly, among others. Fundamentally, community health outreach programmes will increase community health knowledge, change their attitudes and practices and ultimately tackling the major determinants of health outcomes.
The state-of-the-art hospital or IWA SOTA Hospital will have the following benefits: Provision of specialised and advanced health services presently lacking in the region. This will eliminate the need for patients to travel to Mulago, Lacor, Kalong, Matany hospitals, and recently Mt. Elgon hospital, Mbale, all in search of advanced care.
IWA SOTA Hospital will have advanced medical equipment, technology and specialists. Because of this, IWA SOTA hospital will be a referral to the existing hospitals an aspect which will improve the quality of health services. Further to this, an additional hospital will mean more people will be accessing health services.
IWA SOTA Hospital will be a centre of excellence in health care in the region. Working in partnership with medical schools and universities in the region, the hospital will contribute to training more health workers and in advanced medicine. By training and retraining existing health workers, IWA SOTA Hospital will contribute to increasing the number of health care providers in the region.
There is presently no health research centre in the region. An IWA owned and controlled SOTA hospital will be able to undertake research to support evidence-based medicine. The different units of the hospital independently and in collaboration with local and international universities and hospitals will carry out health research.
A SOTA hospital will enable us to repatriate medical expertise from the medical fraternity of the daughters and sons of Teso in the diaspora. A modern hospital will offer our kith and kin an opportunity to improve the health of our people provide treatment through tele medicine, or occasionally come over to treat patients. By doing this, we will eliminate the need to fly abroad for treatment. Our hospital will be able to fly specialists to carry out treatment, instead of patients going abroad.