ABIM – United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has today 4 August donated 7,890 integrated Health Management Information Systems (HMIS) tools to Abim district to improve maternal health and COVID-19 response efforts.
Ms Patricia Nangiro, the officer in charge of UNFPA’s Moroto Decentralized Office handed over the maternal health registers and publications, printed with funding from the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) to Dr. Salome Tino, Abim District Health Officer (DHO).
The tools included maternal, antenatal and postnatal registers, postpartum care forms, mother-child passports, maternal admission chats, reproductive health commodity order forms, family planning atlas, Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV) registers and COVID-19 awareness posters.
“These tools are basically to help improve the quality of data that is gathered from the health facilities regarding sexual reproductive health and also to improve on the service delivery,” said Ms Nangiro.
“It was important that UNFPA supported the districts with these tools that will be distributed to all Health centre III’s, including [health centre] IV’s and the hospitals,” she added.
The HMIS tools are meant for addressing health delivery problems and strengthening health interventions will be handed to the other districts in the Karamoja region later.
Mr Emmanuel Oketch, Abim district biostatistician said the tools will help in tracking and addressing the health delivery challenges, as the data will support planning, management, and decision making.
“We want to thank you, UNFPA, for supporting us with HMIS tools. Recently we ran out of most of the tools you have brought for us. So your intervention is timely,” said Mr Oketch.
“We still continue looking forward to you [UNFPA] supporting us in the future with the same tools. What you have brought currently is just enough for maybe two or three months and thereafter we shall need more,” he said.
The health facilities in Uganda are required to fill and submit weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual reports about the health care service delivery to the Ministry of Health and Development Partners.
“This will improve our reporting. As you know there is a limit to improvising HMIS tools. If you improvise, then you miss out on certain key information that is actually required,” said Oketch.
“Most of our facilities have been improvising. So these tools will go a long way in ensuring that the quality of our data is up to date and therefore it can be reliably used for planning,” he said.
UNFPA also handed the Gender Based Violence incident report forms to the District Community Development Officer to be distributed to sub counties, police stations and posts to document reported cases.
About UNFPA
UNFPA works towards ending preventable maternal health, unmet need for family planning and ending gender-based violence against women and harmful practices. It also engages with women’s and men’s groups to build a critical mass of voices for gender equality and human rights.
