Summary
Reach One Touch One Ministries (ROTOM) was founded in 2003 and has since grown to become one of the most prominent mission organizations supporting vulnerable older persons in the Eastern African region. Since its founding in 2003, ROTOM has supported over 2000 older persons and 600 children in their care, through an outreach program to address spiritual and social care, improvement of older people's health, increasing food and income security among older people's households, supporting older people to raise children in their care, and advocating for older persons' rights. The outreach program is centered around building a team of qualified social workers, care workers and volunteers visiting older persons in their homes, villages and communities, and providing the support they need. This outreach program is heavily reliant on an in-house health fund that pays for health care of older persons both at ROTOM built and run health centers (only ones of their kind in the region dedicated to geriatric care), and other health facilities for advanced health care services. Like many organizations around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on ROTOM’s work. The outbreak of the pandemic in Uganda in March 2020 and the resultant total lockdown greatly affected older persons. Being among the most vulnerable group for catching COVID-19, older persons were not only worried about contracting the disease, but also how to access medical treatment, food, water, and care for their grandchildren. Knowing that the population we served was the most at risk and relied heavily on ROTOM’s support to sustain good health, ROTOM management moved quickly to innovatively find a working solution to continue serving older persons. The team developed and implemented a Field Based Health Care model hinged on three pillars: 1. Field Nurses, 2. Village Volunteers, 3. The use of technology. Furthermore, when vaccines became available, ROTOM was quick to approach government health facilities and request for ROTOM Health Centers to become Covid-19 vaccination centers. Recognizing that ROTOM was serving one of the most vulnerable category susceptible to Covid, government granted this request and offered training to the ROTOM Medical teams. Again, using the network of village volunteers, we mobilized all supported older persons and qualifying members in their communities for vaccination. ROTOM also provided transport to and from the vaccination centers as well as meals and refreshments during the vaccination days.
Planning and Implementation
-
What was the challenge you were trying to address?
At the peak of the pandemic, ROTOM found itself unable to provide the much needed support especially healthcare to older persons in Uganda because the government mandated a complete lockdown of the country (the longest continuous lockdown in Africa) that affected all modes of transportation, impacting the movement of sick older persons from their homes and communities to health facilities. The lockdown also did not allow our staff to go to homes and communities of ROTOM supported older persons to deliver the much needed care and supplies during this time. After almost 20 years of supporting older persons in Uganda, ROTOM thought we had figured out a community outreach model to support vulnerable older persons in Sub Saharan Africa. However, the COVID-19 pandemic shattered this and forced ROTOM leadership to rise to the occasion. With courage, ROTOM took the risk and innovated a strategy to continue to deliver health care amidst the challenges brought about by the pandemic. The new community outreach strategy in the era of lockdown was hinged on three pillars: Field Nurse, Village Volunteers and Technology.
-
Who were you trying to impact?
Older people in general, Older people with chronic health conditions or disability, Older people with vulnerabilities, Both older and younger people
-
What sectors were you targeting?
Education, Health, Social protection
-
Who else was involved?
Government, Civil Society Organization, Health Care, Social Care
-
How did older people participate?
Older people were part of the process at multiple or all stages
Lessons learned
-
Please describe how collaboration worked in your initiative.
N/A
-
What was the impact of your initiative on older people, their families, and/or their communities?
Overall, 275 older persons with symptoms of COVID-19 were tested and over 70 tested positive. They were put on early supportive treatment and all except 2 recovered very well and continue to live. Furthermore, within the first three months of the vaccine availability, over 90% of all supported older persons had received the first dose of the AstraZeneca COVID Vaccine and by the 5th month, 98% of ROTOM supported older persons had received the first and second dose of the vaccine. Today, over 75% of the 907 older persons supported by ROTOM, have received the booster doze. This makes ROTOM supported older persons, one of the highly vaccinated groups in the country with about 17% vaccine coverage.
-
What issues did you face, and how did you address them?
Covered in previous section on challenges.
-
What lessons did you learn from implementing this initiative?
Amidst the surge of the 1st and 2nd waves of COVID-19 in Uganda, ROTOM achieved the highest rate of health care access since its inception. The community outreach strategy which was implemented played a vital role in ensuring that older persons kept healthy and safe in their homes. This strategy has since been integrated in the ROTOM programming and has proved to be part of ROTOM’s success going forward.
-
Do you have any other reflections you would like to share?
N/A