Effectiveness of the partnership between Tororo District Local Government and Plan Uganda in enhancing access to the right to Health services in Tororo County health sub-district

Abstract

The study was undertaken to assess the effectiveness of the partnership between Tororo District Local Government and Plan Uganda in enhancing access to the right to heath services in Tororo County Health Sub District over the past four years. To guide the study, seven objectives were designed, namely: to confirm the involvement and extent of Plan Uganda‟s involvement in the Tororo District Local Government health service delivery programmes; to verify whether the partnership had the capacity to supervise and monitor health care delivery within the study area; to ascertain whether the partnership had the capacity to provide sustainable preventive therapy and cure for communicable diseases through treatment, awareness for sanitation and immunisation; to find out to whether the partnership between Tororo District Local Government and Plan Uganda aided the provision of health services to vulnerable children and families in order to reduce the rate of mortality and morbidity in Tororo County HSD; and finally to determine the challenges that have faced the partnership between Tororo District Local Government and Plan Uganda and identify possible solutions that could be implemented to overcome these challenges faced by the partnership. Seven research questions were used guide the study. Chapter Two is devoted to a review of the pertinent literature on key concepts in the study: health policy in Uganda, decentralisation, partnerships, rights based approaches, Millennium Development Goals, the role of Civil Society. It also introduces Plan‟s rights based philosophy and concept of development as a member of civil society both in Uganda and internationally. The Research Methodology is set out in Chapter Three. The study was basically qualitative in nature and therefore the research was of a descriptive type of design. The research findings contained in Chapter Four confirmed the overall effectiveness of the partnership in enhancing access to the right to health in study area, albeit with some shortcomings. The study noted that in promoting the realisation of the right to health for the population, state parties are guided by the need to achieve the highest attainable standard, which obviously calls for value judgements. However the study relied on the minimum standards of availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of health facilities and services within the context of the research questions to measure the effectiveness of the partnership. The summary, conclusion and recommendations are presented in chapter five, which is the last chapter of the study. In that chapter the study concluded with the identification of the issues of power sharing between local governments and civil society; and health financing as potential areas for further research. The study concluded that the partnership between Tororo District and Plan Uganda enhanced access to the right to health services by increasing availability and accessibility to health facilities across all sub counties of Tororo County HSD. The partnership also made clear contributions to improving acceptability and quality of heath services in the study area.