Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development (HEPS-Uganda) will be implementing a project funded under the USAID/Uganda Private Health Support Program to conduct a consumer awareness campaign on essential medicines for a period of 8 months in Kamuli, Mukono and Jinja districts.
In partnership with TRAC FM, HEPS-Uganda will organise interactive talkshows on Radio Simba and Baba FM to raise awareness on rational use of medicine and collect feedback from medicine consumers.
This campaign seeks to sensitize consumers and private health providers about medicine policies in Uganda, rights and responsibilities related to medicines, medicine prices as well as other information necessary to improve rational use of medicines and increase affordability of private health services and products in line with USAID/Uganda Private Health Support Program objectives.
The project is based on the fact that Uganda’s health sector is heavily burdened by communicable diseases like Malaria, HIV/AIDS, and Tuberculosis and maternal and childhood illnesses and a growing burden of non-communicable diseases like Cancers, Hypertension and Diabetes. For example the Uganda AIDS Indicator Survey 2011 reported HIV prevalence among adults aged between 15 and 49 years at a national average of 7.3%; demand for and uptake of reproductive health services & commodities is low; only 20.4% of Ugandan women use a modern contraceptive method, Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) stands at 30% and unmet need at 34% (UDHS 2011). Additionally, 37% of all health expenditure in Uganda is met by household majorly out of pocket (OOP)[1] at PHPs which are the main and first contacts of households contributing up to 46% of health care provision (MoH, 2011).
Among the project activities, HEPS-Uganda is working with National Drug Authority (NDA) and other stakeholders at national level to update the list of average medicine retail prices for dissemination in Private Drug Shops (PDS). Additionally HEPS will work with NDA and Uganda Health Federation (UHF) to finalize the client charter for medicines. The project team will use a Community Score Card (CSC) methodology and opinion polls will be conducted in partnership with TRAC FM and two radio stations.
About HEPS-Uganda
The Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development (HEPS-UGANDA) is a health and human rights non-governmental organization which envisions a society in which all Ugandans can exercise their health rights and responsibilities. Established in the year 2000, HEPS-Uganda is a coalition of health consumers, health practitioners, CSO’s and CBOs that works to ensure equitable access to health services with special focus on access to medicines for all Ugandans.
