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Jinja Regional Referral hospital, a government owned facility, is the largest in eastern Uganda, with a bed capacity of 700 to 800. It is the Regional Referral Hospital for the 10 districts of Bugiri, Namutumba,Iganga,Buyende Kaliro,Kamuli,Namayingo, Luuka, Jinja, and Mayuge. It also serves parts of the neighbouring Kayunga, Mukono and Buikwe districts a total population of 4 to 5 million people in all. Of these 20% are children below 18 years. Acute malnutrition occurs mainly in families that have limited access to nutritious food.The prevalence of malnutrition among children who get services in Jinja is above 20%. This high prevalence is attributed to the disease burden (HIV/AIDS, TB, sickle cell, diarrhoea, etc), poverty, domestic violence, ignorance, poor child care practices.The hospital does not currently offer supplementary feeds to the moderately malnourished,conduct community outreaches for community mobilisation and involvement, or follow up clients enrolled on nutrition programmes when they default. This project will thus help bridge the above gaps hence improving on treatment success stories & mobilisation of communities for the prevention of malnutrition and other diseases. It will be a purely humanitarian grant that will hopefully include a vocational training team (VTT) component that will be implemented over a period of one year, starting as soon as funding is made available to provide appropriate and timely nutrition services that are accessible by the target communities. The project shall target the children and caregivers of children less than 18 years. The supplementary feeding program will benefit the moderately malnourished children while the community outreaches shall target all children with focus on those who are severely malnourished. This will be the only nutrition & training centre in the entire eastern region of Uganda and only the second in the country after the one at Mulago National Referral hospital in the capital city of Kampala.
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