Kagote Health Centre
Background
Kagote Health Centre in the West Division of Fort Portal started as a government initiative to make healthcare more accessible. Being a grade III facility, the intention was that it should function as a local maternity centre, catering for all normal births, alongside providing HIV testing and family planning services for nearly a thousand patients. By 2014 however, the health centre had been unable to deliver babies for 16 years; increasing the risk of maternal deaths and impacting efforts to reduce HIV transmission from mother to child.
Outline of project:
One Brick at a Time alongside the Liverpool-Mulago Partnership and Knowledge 4 Chance (K4C), helped to revitalise the health centre and improvements came in two phases:
Phase I - 2014
From 2011 onwards, the Health Centre had been operating without electricity and sinks. With the sponsorship of Professor Louise Ackers of Salford University and the LMP, OBAAT carried out general electrical repairs and reconnected the power. 2 sinks for hand washing were also installed alongside a range of other improvements such as:
- The construction of a placenta pit for the disposal of waste.
- Privacy partition for the antenatal clinic's office.
- General repairs on the ceiling, floor and windows
- Curtain rails in the Antenatal clinic.
- Repairs were carried out on the shutters in the delivery room to keep mosquitoes out.
Phase II - 2015
Lacking a facility for carrying out basic observations and assessing case priority as well as needing a larger delivery room, OBAAT, with the support of its partners, built a new facility for carrying out basic observations - the Kagote Healthcare Canopy - and converted an old patients ward into a new, larger delivery room.
Works in the new triage facility and clinics also included :
- Constructing concrete benches in the triage canopy.
- Installing hand washing sinks at the new out patients clinic.
- Installing new sinks and a plumbing system in the delivery room and postnatal room.
- Constructing a waiting area outside the maternity block.
- Creating new internal access to improve the postnatal facilities and connect them with the delivery room.
- Repairing the old doors