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AFJN Board Member Comments on the Situation in Northern Uganda |
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Lacey Haussamen, Board Member and former AFJN
employee, has spent the summer in northern Uganda researching health systems
in the war-torn area. We recently received these observations in an email from
Lacey and hope that they will inspire some of you to take action and advocate
for better basic services in Africa,
particularly in zones of post-conflict reconstruction. Lacey is pursuing a master’s
degree in public health at Emory
University and will
conclude her studies in the spring of 2008.
“So far I've visited 9 health facilities in 2 districts,
ranging from hospitals to lower level facilities that offer basic services. For each visit, I take my two research
assistants with me (students from Gulu University) and we divide the tasks of
doing an objective assessment of the facility (what services, staff, drugs,
etc. they have and don't have), observation of the Ante-natal Clinic, and then
we interview women after the visit as they are leaving. The purpose of
this is to determine the quality of care they are receiving. This can
theoretically help inform government, staff, NGOs, etc. on how to best meet the
health needs of the populations they serve. There are some outstanding
services and people we've met, but everywhere is severely understaffed and often lacking many essential resources and supplies.
There is something to communicate about the situation here, and that numerous
people I have met here would like to be communicated. The area is safe as
far as war activities are concerned – the LRA is not attacking, children are
not being abducted, and very few are night commuting any longer. There is
a relative peace and people are hopeful. They are still apprehensive in
trusting the peace talks entirely, but they are hopeful. Many people are moving
out of the camps into smaller camps that are closer to their home lands or they
are moving back to their original homes.
Reasons cited for not leaving the camps yet are primarily
that people don't trust the peace talks and that there is a lack of resources in
their home villages (food, water, health services, etc.). The few children who are still night
commuting are doing so mostly because of other problems – maybe abuse at home
or they are orphans. There have actually been some cases of these
children starting to cause problems such as petty theft and harassment in
places where they are commuting.
This differentiation does not however, negate the necessary attention that
needs to be focused on a post-conflict situation. There are the thousands of
children who have returned from the bush and need some serious trauma
counseling, psychosocial, and other support. There are basic needs that
are still not being met – adequate water, food, and access to health care and
education. And of course there are still those who need to come back home
from the bush.”
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