By Michael Kanaabi Dollar
The growing need for Palliative Care given to patients suffering long-term chronic illnesses some of which have been declared terminal has created an ever-growing demand for these support services which traditional providers can’t meet.
As a result, medical start-up Teamwork Homecare which focuses on providing home-based medicare has stepped up as one of the companies providing a much-needed service to fill this gap.
Word Health Organisation and The Uganda Palliative Care Association put the need for palliative care in Uganda at 1% of the country’s population with Uganda’s estimated population having crossed 40 million people at the moment.
This implies that about 400,000 Ugandans including children, the elderly and youth dealing with chronic pain and illnesses including cancers, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, Sickle cell disease and other ailments some of which have reached the terminal stage need this treatment.
According to available statistics, only about 11% of those in need are receiving this much-needed care leaving a gap of 89% unattended. These make up about 359000 Ugandans to be precise and home-based medical services provider Teamwork Homecare is setting its sights on ensuring this group of people is well taken care of with palliative care to improve their quality of life.
Who needs Palliative Care?
“People suffering from long-term chronic diseases such as Cancer, Heart Failure, advanced Kidney and liver diseases, Sickle cell anaemia, Osteoporosis, Diabetes, Dementia, Alzheimer’s disease plus a number of other ailments,” Teamwork Homecare CEO Julius Habumugisha says.
What does Palliative Care entail?
Palliative care is care given to people with long-term illnesses on top of the regular medical care a patient is getting to help improve the quality of their life by managing and doing away with stress, chronic pain and discomfort resulting from the illness.
The symptoms treated include anxiety, depression, chronic fatigue, sleeping disorders, nausea, shortness of breath, constipation and loss of appetite among others.
It is administered by trained palliative caregivers (nurses) in conjunction with the medical team treating the patient’s main ailment to ensure all the medication works together to help improve the quality of life for the patient Habumugisha notes.
What needs to done?
Patients with the above chronic ailments and others or their caretakers should reach out to Teamwork Homecare services through their website www.teamworkhomcare .com, through their phone contacts or directly at their Naalya offices to get the help they need.
“An assessment by our team of medical professionals is then done on the patient and their needs are determined after which a treatment plan is worked out and a caregiver who may be a home-based nurse is assigned to the patient to ensure the Palliative Care plan is well adhered to and the patient takes all their medication, nutrition plus any other treatment to improve their quality of life,” Habumugisha says.
While assigning the Caregiver, Teamwork Homecare ensures the person going to receive the care is involved in the process so that they can choose a caregiver (nurse) of their preference considering things like language for ease of communication are important in this process and may contribute directly to the improvement in well being of the patient.
Beyond Palliative Care
Beyond Palliative care, Teamwork Homecare also provides other services which include the provision of home care nurses, Doctors and emergency medical treatment at home, elderly care, supply of medical oxygen for those who need it at home, Post delivery and paediatric homecare services, placement and recruitment of nurses and doctors for temporary work like filling in at hospitals for weekends and more long term temporary contracts with medical facilities that last up to 6 months.
Going forward Teamwork Homecare is looking at spreading its services across the country starting with regional hubs in Eastern, Northern and Midwestern Uganda on top of creating an application through which patients and prospective clients can access their services faster and more conveniently on both Android and Apple iOS.
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Email: michaelkanaabi@gmail.com/ WhatsApp: +256701133509
