This District Grant will provide $45,000 to purchase a Toyota truck for the Teresa Ayiko International Hospital in Atiak, northern Uganda. The 100,000 square foot hospital is owned by the Alliance for African Assistance-Uganda, a Ugandan non-profit organization with strong ties to the Atiak Community and Rotary. Recently, Rotary Global Grant 1863836 provided over $300,000 for medical equipment for the new hospital, with the support of ten Rotary Clubs in Gulu, Uganda, San Diego, California and Hexham, England, as well as Rotary Districts 5340 and 9211. The hospital's opening has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, is expected to open in 2021. At that time, the hospital will provide a broad range of services including surgery, anesthesiology, maternity, pediatrics, and dentistry, for a population of 100,000.
One of the major challenges of providing quality healthcare in Atiak is the lack of reliable transportation. At this time, the hospital only has one dedicated vehicle, an ambulance, which was part of the aforementioned Global Grant. A second vehicle is necessary to transport hospital supplies and personnel, as the ambulance will be the sole means of patient transportation.
Beneficiaries of this project are 100,000 patients expected to be served from the local community plus additional patients from the over one million refugees from South Sudan that are in northern Uganda. Uganda has one of the highest rates of maternal and neonatal deaths in Sub-Sahara Africa. Infant mortality is 57.6 per 1000 births, compared to Europe at 4 per 1000 births. The rate of maternal death is also very high (1 in 47 compared to 1 in 5800 in Europe). Mortality for children under five is also high due to pneumonia, malaria, diarrhea, measles, whooping cough, tuberculosis, hepatitis and HIV/AIDS. Northern Uganda has also been affected by Ebola and tropical diseases including sleeping sickness.
Addendum to Project Description (added after the project was signed)
The Teresa Ayiko International Hospital opened in September 2021.
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