About Us
How we started and what we do
Here at Love Your Neighbor, we see the value in serving God by meeting the needs of our neighbors. We believe that every person we meet is our neighbor and we should do for them what we wish done for us should we be in similar circumstances. Ever since we opened our doors at Namulaba Health Center in Mukono District in Uganda in July 2007, we have treated people with all illnesses when they walk into our clinics. We thank God for these blessings through the kind gifts of His humble servants, the donors, who through their gifts we operate Namulaba Health Center in Central Uganda and Toth Health Center in Mbale in Eastern Uganda.
NAMULABA HEATH CENTER is struggling. It needs your help. The project was started by the Director (Dr Samuel Kalibala) on his farm land in February 2005. He was prompted by the number of patients who would come to him for help whenever he visited the farm. The rationale for starting a health center on the farm is presented in Namulaba’s first newsletter dated February 2008 from which the following paragraph was excerpted:
Imagine you are a health worker who works on HIV and AIDS but you have bought land in a remote location, where you think people do not know you, to develop a retirement farm. What would you do if when you reach your farm, you find a sick looking woman with a 2-year-old daughter who has a high fever and she asks you for help? She says she has been told that you are a doctor and that she lost her husband and her 2-year-old daughter has malaria and she herself is sickly and she has no money. Do you immediately put her and her child into your four-wheel drive truck, which you came with because the roads were so bad you could not use a simpler car, and take her to the nearest hospital one hour’s drive away? And what do you think you would find there? I bet you would find an outpatient department that is operated by un-motivated under-paid staff. You would find that they are short of basic supplies and medicines, that their labs do not have the necessary reagents and that the facility is over crowded with patients and they do not have a constant supply of electricity and water.
In February 2007 the project got its first external funding of UK £ 9,414 from AVERT, a UK based charity. This funding helped with the purchase of equipment and the clinic became operative from June 2007. Using this funding the project provided services for eight months until January 2008. During this period each patient was contributing about 10% of the cost of a medical visit. Young people, pregnant women, VCT clients and people living with HIV were paying no cost-share fee for the service.
During that 8-month period we provided the following services.
Primary health care to a cumulative total of 1,026 clients
HIV testing to a cumulative total of 279 clients (referring those testing positive for ARV treatment)
Between February 2008 and July 2009, we had no external funding and we depended on resources from the farm. In addition, each patient was contributing about 20% of the cost of a medical visit. This included young people, VCT clients and people living with HIV. Only pregnant women are exempted from the cost-share fee for the service. As a result, the number receiving services decreased and this decrease disproportionately affected the most vulnerable including women, children, the elderly and the unemployed.
During that 17-month period we delivered the following services:
Primary health care to a cumulative total of 1,433 clients
HIV testing to a cumulative total of 449 clients (referring those testing positive for ARV treatment)
Malaria testing to a cumulative total of 395 clients (treating all those testing positive using the highly effective drugs—Artemesimin combined therapy (ACT))
The project was funded by a kind Swedish couple (Inger and Claes) for five years from July 2009 at a rate of US$ 12,500 per year. During this period each patient was contributing about 10% of the cost of a medical visit. Young people, pregnant women, VCT clients and people living with HIV were paying no cost-share fee for the service.
In the five years of this gift we delivered the following services:
Primary health care to a cumulative total of 7,592 clients in the main clinic and 988 in the community pharmacy (nurse’s clinic).
HIV testing to a cumulative total of 1,508 clients (referring those testing positive for ARV treatment)
Malaria testing to a cumulative total of 2,145 clients (treating all those testing positive using the highly effective drugs—Artemesimin combined therapy (ACT))
Family Planning to a cumulative total of 485 women
Immunization to a cumulative total of 1,383 children
272 ante natal care (ANC) consultations (over a period of 32 months since maternity opened in Dec 2011)
Delivered 72 babies (over a period of 29 months since first delivery in March 2012)
Since August 2014, the project has had no consistent external funding and is depending on resources from the farm. In addition, each patient is now contributing about 20% of the cost of a medical visit. This includes young people, VCT clients and people living with HIV. Only pregnant women are exempted from the cost-share fee for the service. As a result, the number receiving services has decreased and this decrease disproportionately affects the most vulnerable including women, children, the elderly and the unemployed.
In the past 12 months—Aug 2014 to July 2015 we have managed to provide the following services:
Primary health care to a cumulative total of 676 clients
HIV testing to a cumulative total of 249 clients (referring those testing positive for ARV treatment)
Malaria testing to a cumulative total of 335 clients (treating all those testing positive using the highly effective drugs—Artemesimin combined therapy (ACT))
211 ante natal care (ANC) consultations
Delivered 21 babies
A cumulative total of 24 youths have attended the youth club since its inception in March 2015.
Currently we are providing these minimal services using funding from the farm--$560 per month comprising of personnel ($282); transport ($108); general expenses ($60) and drugs ($110).
So, how can you help us?
As per our story above over the eight years of existence of this health center, since June 2007, we have been fortunate to have got external funding for 8 months from Avert and for 5 years from the Swedish couple. From August to December 2014 the Swedish couple provided us with an additional $5,000 as bridging funds as we tried to establish a community based health insurance (CBHI). The effort to establish the CBHI is currently on hold because it requires a substantial amount of funding to set up the system.
Here are our asks to you:
The fully operational monthly budget of Namulaba Health center is $1,659. This includes personnel salaries ($830); transport ($253); general expenses ($106); community activities ($50); and drugs ($420). We are seeking this amount per month in order to be able to provide the services we provided during the five years of the gift from the Swedish couple plus the following community activities which we have ever delivered before but stopped due to lack of funds:
Health education events targeting in-school youths (essay competitions, seminars about adolescent sexuality)
Church seminars providing health education
Competitions in football for boys and netball for girls during school holidays targeting in-school and out of school youths with health education messages
Music dance and drama competitions targeting adults and youths with health education messages
Mobile HIV voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) provided at trading centers in the community
If you provide us with $1,000 per month we will be able to provide the services we provided during the five years of the gift from the Swedish couple.
If you provide us with any amount you are able and willing to provide it will help reduce the current burden of $400 per month on the farm.
We have a vision for a community based health insurance, if you have interest in joining us in this learning experience please do come. We need to learn how to provide sustainable health care to low income families using a kind of insurance system appropriate for low income earners.
TOTH HEALTH CENTER is supported by the kind gift of Elena and Miklos. We operate Toth Health Center in Mbale area in Eastern Uganda. We work with a local community based organization known as Nakaloke Development Initiative for Communities (NADECO). It is a community based organization that was started in 2008 in Mbale District in Uganda with the aim of enhancing community development and social services in rural communities. Between January 2010 and March 2011 NADECO carried out needs assessment, mapping of partners and training of community health workers (CHW) in two sub-counties of Nakaloke and Namanyonyi. Both sub-counties together have an estimated population of 60,000 people or about 12,000 families. In April 2011 NADECO started providing HIV Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) together with Family Planning (FP) at community venues such as places of worship and schools in the eight parishes of the two sub-counties. The first such service was provided at Aisa Parish in Namanyonyi sub-county on April 2nd 2011 and 62 clients were served. When we shared this information with Dr Miklos Toth and his dear wife Elena, Miklos and Elena decided to start the Toth Health Center. We are grateful to them for this generous gift to the people of this community.
Toth Health Center started seeing patients on 2nd July 2011—the first Saturday of that month—and has continued to see patients every first Saturday of every month treating about 150 patients each clinic day. In the first year of operation (2011-12) we saw a total of 1,764 patients; in the second year of operation (2012-13) we saw 1,863 bringing the cumulative total to 3,627; in the third year of operation (2013-14) we saw 1,937 patients bringing the cumulative total to 5,564 patients treated; in the fourth year of operation (2014-15) we saw 1,794 patients bringing the cumulative total of patients treated to 7,358; and in the fifth year of operation (2015-16) we saw 1,960 patients bringing the cumulative total of patients treated using this gift to 9,318. On average, every year we have been treating 1,864 patients. We thank God and the Toths for this gift.