The Ministry of Health has launched a new capacity building app to acquaint health workers across the country with latest information on Covid-19.
Kenneth Nyehoora Mugumya, the Regional Engagement Director Community Health Academy at Last Mile Health who is the consultants that partnered with the Ministry said the platform helps health workers to access dependable information since all content uploaded will initially be verified to be in tandem with global and national interventions into treatment.
He said the platform has modules on not just treatment but also infection prevention, emergency care, nutrition and the kind of psycho social support needed by a patient in the wake of stigma associated with Covid-19.
Dr. William Worodria a member of the COVID-19 Case Management pillar said this initiative comes in timely with the challenges they are encountering with ensuring that when treatment protocols are reviewed the health workers get updated in a timely manner.
Since the beginning of the pandemic Worodria says Uganda has changed treatment protocols twice but already the second one is getting out-dated and that they have been worrying about making reprints frequently.
He said when coming up with new guidelines as new evidence crops up, they review what is acceptable globally and weigh it against the local context. Currently he says they are considering changing the second guidelines on therapies.
Until now, Dr. Hellen Aanyu Tukamuhebwa a consultant paediatrician at Mulago hospital who has been involved in COVID-19 treatment says health workers have been taking individual initiative to know what is latest in treatment research and generally correct themselves in Dos and Don’ts that are mostly learnt in webinars.
She said physical training of health workers has only happened in a few scenarios leaving a lot of health workers who might interface with patients especially now that the country is at the community transmission phase of COVID-19.
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