Provide 500 therapy sessions to disabled children

In Uganda, therapy and rehabilitation services are extremely poor with Kyaninga Child Development Centre (KCDC) as the only organization providing multidisciplinary therapy services (physio, occupational and speech therapy) in western Uganda.

This project is providing 500 therapy sessions to children with disabilities in western Uganda. Each therapy session is provided by a highly trained physiotherapist, occupational therapist, orthopedic officer, speech and language therapist or a special needs education teacher. The children with disabilities attended daily clinic appointments for therapy. For those who were unable to reach the clinic, KCDC staff conducted home visits and an outreach clinic in every sub-county plus school visits for those who are enrolled in school.

Since the beginning of March to the end of May 2020, KCDC has been able to provide 668 therapy sessions. The number of therapy sessions is lower than in the previously submitted report due to restrictions brought about by the Covid-19 global pandemic.

Since March 2020, in response to the Covid-19 global pandemic, the Ugandan government has introduced a set of strict measures to prevent transmission of the virus in Uganda. These measures include:

• All schools, universities and colleges closed
• All non-food markets and businesses closed
• All passenger flights into and out of the country suspended
• All land borders closed except for cargo trucks
• All public and private transport suspended
• All church services and other public gatherings suspended

These are still ongoing except that private cars carrying only 3 people have been allowed to operate since the 26^th May 2020. These restrictions have negatively affected the provision of therapy sessions to children with disabilities and we were met with a lot of challenges. We prioritized seeing the most vulnerable and at-risk families, those living in extreme poverty, in unstable and neglectful relationships and we found some to have severe malnutrition, and those with feeding difficulties at risk of getting malnutrition.

At the beginning of April 2020, KCDC staff from both the Kabarole and Kasese clinics were able to conduct home visits to the most vulnerable families, delivering buckets of food, therapy programmes and educational materials. They reached a total of 323 families who were really struggling to survive and were all extremely grateful to be thought of during this time. We found 82 children who had severe malnutrition that required additional food and 4 that required hospital admission for management of their condition. Fortunately, all 4 are putting on weight and are now being managed at home with support from KCDC

One of the most severe cases involved a child called Jackline who has developmental delay and was seen regularly for therapy by our speech and language therapist and occupational therapist. Up until now she had never had issues relating to malnutrition and her therapy was generally focused on functional independence and communication.

When we visited Jackline and her grandmother, we found that they were really struggling, surviving on one meal a day, along with two other children that had been sent to stay with them during the lock down. As the grandmother is caring for all the children alone, it wasn’t possible to admit Jackline to the nutrition ward at the hospital so she was sent back home with therapeutic feeds and additional foods from KCDC. We have been monitoring her progress with regular visits to the house and have been delighted to see her doing so well, gaining weight quickly and returning to her usual energetic and cheeky self!!

The 668 therapy sessions have helped the children to gain functional independence, improved developmental milestones, improved malnutrition status, enrollment in school for inclusive education, improved communication, and reduced stigma and created awareness about disability among the family members and community.

With these successful therapy sessions, KCDC will continue with this project to help other CWD’s in the neighboring districts and create more awareness. We will also actively promote trained community members to create more awareness and refer all the children they think that need our therapy intervention for assessment and management.

Links:

• Keep up to date with KCDC in the field
• KCDC's website