LWOVI to introduce mobile hospital buses

Lubaga Women Volunteer's Initiative (LWOVI), has come up with a program to introduce mobile hospital buses as a means of improving health services in the country.

The hospitals are to provide free medical care to the public.

According to the LWOVI chairperson Esther Najjemba, the program is aimed at assisting the poor who cannot afford or access healthcare services.

"With this we intend to improve primary health care service delivery throughout Uganda and the mobile hospitals will be dedicated to the poor, vulnerable and underserved communities," said Najjemba.

Therefore these hospital buses are expected to first reach out to the rural areas with volunteer medical staff and sensitize people to embrace the service so as to help decongest government hospitals. The buses are proposed to work and grow on a regional basis.

LWOVI is a non-profit organization that was started in 2014 as a community based organization but was earlier this year in February registered as a company by guarantee. It primarily focuses on helping the vulnerable persons in Uganda like the elderly, orphanages and the poor who cannot afford basic social services.

The sole aim of this initiative is to teach these people different activities that earn them a living and now with the free mobile hospitals provide primary health care.

Although this program is costly with an estimated budget of over sh23b as buses are to be imported, Najjemba strongly believes that it can be raised as LWOVI expects to work with different stakeholders, some of who are already engaged to support them.

"We are already working in conjunction with some stakeholders like government and the Ministry of Health, Stanbic bank, Movit, Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) and believe more donors and well-wishers will join us because it is for the betterment of our communities," said Najjemba.

She added that the program cannot fail due to poor management because the buses will be monitored with cameras to ensure they are not misused.

However the program will formally be launched to the public on Sunday, 25th September with a 5km road race at Old Kampala Secondary School.

Research shows that the same programme has had very noticeable success in countries like New Zealand, USA, Philippines, Australia, Dubai, Turkey, India and China.