Focusing on human resources for health at the local level

Last month, to support the development and review of human resources policy guidelines at the district level, the IntraHealth-led Uganda Capacity Program (UCP) brought together representatives from local authorities to review current health unit management committee (HUMC) training modules—a first step toward their revision. Uganda’s Ministry of Health wanted a revised training to better equip committee members with the needed tools to tackle wide-ranging human resources for health problems. 

Better meeting training needs of users

The workshop enabled updating of the modules and combining the training materials to capture both public and the private not-for-profit training needs.

“The suggested revisions will be representative of the needs of the users,” remarked participant Babwine Mwase Sulai, nursing officer for Village Health Teams in the Bugiri District, who noted that the current modules are out of date.

The workshop also allowed simplifying of the language to fit users within the local authorities. Participant Grace Nakazibwe, community-based health care program officer with the Uganda Protestant Medical Bureau, noted that the simplifications “make the modules user-friendly to the committee members.”

Developing more inclusive committees

Another participant, a senior medical clinical officer from Bugiri District, said that the deficiencies in the training modules caused lowered morale among HUMC members. Ekinaidhanga Isabirye Farook described how the previous HUMC composition left out key community leaders like local council chairpersons at the village level.

“These people are first-hand informers of the situation on the ground,” he explains. “Some sections of people—like women leaders, people with disabilities and the youth—are not at all catered to in the current HUMC training modules, yet these [groups of people] represent special interest groups.” Ekinaidhanga said the revisions proposed during the workshop made the composition of the committees much more inclusive. 

“I am sure that all the participants in this training have made the best use of this opportunity of being together to make longstanding changes,” summarized Dr. George Bagambisa, assistant commissioner of health services with the Ministry of Health. He officially presided over the workshop closure, observing that coordination of these HUMC training modules had almost collapsed given that the Ministry of Health was overwhelmed with a heavy workload and needed continued support from development partners. He applauded UCP for the great work of reviving the review process.  

The next steps will involve training HUMC members in the newly modified module and operationalizing the simplified version across the health sector.