Physical Health Uganda Project #45267

Centre of excellence for newborn care in Uganda

by Born on the Edge

Project Report | Jun 17, 2021
Six years and growing

By Adam Hewitt-Smith | Trustee, Born on the Edge

It is six years since we joined together in partnership with Mbale Regional Referral Hospital in eastern Uganda, to open the doors of the neonatal unit! And we haven’t looked back or stopped since!

Our admissions have rocketed from around 100 sick and small babies a month to 250 a month! Alongside our mortality has plummeted from 52% to 13%

To put that into numbers, we are now saving the lives of over 1,100 babies a year who would otherwise not have made it! Alongside this we continue to train medical and nursing students and healthcare workers through short attachments to the neonatal unit.

We still regularly deliver our newborn care training course across hospitals across eastern Uganda. And everyday we push the boundaries of what is achievable in this low-resource setting with high-dependency care, bedside brain ultrasounds and heart scans everyday.

This partnership and its overwhelming success, would not have been possible without your generosity and support but we still remain in our tiny ward where up to eight babies share a bed. We still have to turn away students who are eager to learn because they cannot physcially fit inside the ward.

We are also fighting our second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Uganda. This wave has hit us hard. Everyday there is news of a healthcare worker who has died from COVID-19. Suddenly our cramped neonatal unit becomes a huge risk for mothers with their babies and our staff. Without space to social distance and with poor ventilation, COVID-19 can easily spread. We have already had members of staff off sick and pray that no-one gets seriously ill. All intensive care beds in the country are full.

You can help us to be safe next time by sharing our campaign with your friends and by setting up a regular donation towards our new build neonatal unit. Please think of the tiny lives we save and the mothers and staff as you read this, all of whom desperately need your help.

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