Save Lives with Emergency Care in Uganda

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) brings rapid, real-time diagnostic and procedural capabilities directly to the community, improving care in settings like primary care, home care, and remote areas by reducing diagnostic delays, guiding treatment, and supporting procedures, ultimately enhancing patient outcomes and decreasing the need for hospital transfers

Despite the welldocumented benefits of ultrasound, there are global disparities in access. Patients in underresourced countries don’t access ultrasound services in critical time. Disparities persist in Uganda Like in many other developing countries, with rural communities less likely to access such services compared to people in urban settings. In order to bridge the disparities, Global Emergency Care (GEC) continues to carry out Capacity Building Trainings in point of care-Ultrasound Scan for both clinicians and other health personnel to boost the management of patients in rural health facilities of Uganda.

Impact testimonials from our trainees

My name is Joanita a trainee of POCUS with Global Emergency Care. Am extremely happy to have been the beneficiary of this training, I can now perform basic ultrasound scans, such as checking for the baby’s heartbeat, locating the placenta, assessing the baby’s position, and observing the amniotic fluid. Before the training, we had to refer pregnant women to Masaka Town for radiology services whenever our radiographer was unavailable. Now, I can perform these essential checks myself when the radiographer - who is only a part-time staff member at our facility- is not on duty. This has significantly improved the speed of my clinical decision-making. I truly appreciate the training. Learning to carry out these basic yet critical spot checks has helped us prevent a lot of inconvenience for our pregnant mothers.

There are global disparities in the provision of emergency medical care, with populations from rural communities and underresourced countries expecting poorer access to these services. This potentially compounds the existing higher burden of morbidity within these populations. In these settings, emergency care training skills has the potential to improve outcomes while mitigating challenges and barriers both during pre-hospital and in-hospital patient care.

Global Emergency Care (GEC) continues to carry out Capacity Building Trainings in emergency care to boost the management of patient care in rural remote communities’ health facilities of Uganda.

As demonstrated by GEC Emergency Care trainee Boniface who wrote…

My name is Boniface, one day on my way home from work, a car accident occurred, leaving one of the passengers, James, unconscious and with a severe head injury but because l had recently completed emergency care training with Global Emergency care (GEC) at Masaka Regional Referral hospital-Uganda, l stopped to help. l was able to assess the situation and provide immediate care, including stabilising his neck and monitoring his vital signs until emergency responders arrived. Thanks to the quick actions and knowledge l had acquired during Global Emergency Care trainings, James’s injury was not as severe as it could have been without my intervention and he was able to make a full recovery on reaching the accident and Emergency Unit.