KAMPALA.
The Makerere University Rotary Peace Centre, Vice-Chancellor Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe has commended the work done by Rotarians in the country .
❝Rotary Peace Fellows are doing great work in their communities. The sector is becoming stronger and stronger. We want to appreciate your support, as Rotary International, for the work that the sector does and I want to appreciate in his [RI president] presence the Rotary fraternity in Uganda which has made this centre feasible and vibrant.
Prof. Nawangwe made the revelation during a visit by Francesco Arezzo , the Rotary International President at the university on Friday .
Earlier in the day , Mr Arezzo visited Kawempe National Referral Hospital .
Him and other Rotary officials inspected the equipment at the facility, including the radiant warmer.
As explained by medic Eva Nangalo, the radiant warmer is an open-bed, overhead heating device used in neonatal care to maintain a newborn’s body temperature, particularly for premature or critically ill infants in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs).
It uses infrared energy to provide stable warmth, with servo-controlled or manual modes for precise, continuous temperature regulation.
In his remarks, Arezzo emphasized the need for stakeholders to unite for a common good, saying the Oxygen for Life project exemplifies such a spirit of unity.
❝This project comes from a strong need of the community and it is done with the community. It is done with the frontline people. Every day, every week, every month, they work on mothers and children.
You are our heroes. You are our essential people because there is no project without you. So thank you for your dedication, for your commitment.
It [the project] was the result of the co-operation of over 40 clubs united to work together. Not only Rotary clubs but also Rotaract clubs. It is so important to work together.”
Health Minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng thanks Rotary for the Oxygen for Life project, a maternal & child health initiative, at Kawempe Neonatal Hospital.
❝Our population adds 1.5 million babies every year. So our fertility rate is high, at 4.5 babies per woman. This is the facility that delivers the highest number of babies in the entire country.
So, having this project here, Oxygen for Life, is extremely useful and critical because it comes to save lives so that every mother can walk home with a baby. The mothers go home alive and the babies go home alive.
“Our maternal mortality rate is still high at 183 per 100,000 live births but also the neonatal mortality rate at 22 per 1,000 is still high” she said
“So a project like this is most welcome especially at this time when we are looking forward to reducing our maternal mortality to 70/100,000 and neonatal mortality to 10/1,000 hopefully by within the next two to three years,” the minister said