The Infants Health Foundation reduces mother morbidity, infant mortality and birth defects in Uganda with an innovative approach to reach rural and inaccessible areas through mobile home-based maternal child healthcare services. Nurses are transported on motorcycles on regular intervals for home visits. The enterprise is fighting for healthy pregnancies to avoid extensive unnecessary death and lifelong, devastating disability/ birth defects of children and women.
Late access to care is a leading driver of maternal, child, and newborn deaths globally. While technologies to stop millions of poverty-driven deaths are well-proven and inexpensive, the great challenge in delivery is time. The later a patient accesses care, the more likely that patient is to die. The status quo, a reactive way of delivering health care, waiting for patients to come through the health facility’s door, often leaves behind the poor, who never make it to the door because of cross-cutting barriers to care. As in most of the world, Uganda’s current healthcare delivery model is passive, with providers waiting for patients to come to them. Families often do not access care for sick children; when they do, they often receive care late, and the health system often fails to deliver evidence-based treatment to the children who do access care. Half of the world’s 7.8 billion people; including more than one billion people living in remote communities, live without access to essential health services and 100 million are impoverished by health expenses every year.
Health for all is imminently possible. We can together build a world where no mother and child die just because they are poor, or because they live too far from a health facility if we have the courage to go beyond the walls of our healthcare facilities. While most health systems sit stationary, ready to treat the patients that reach them, Infants’ Health Foundation (IHF) commits to reach patients where they are. Infants’ Health Foundation recognizes that to save lives in the world’s poorest communities, a reactive model is not enough. Early access to care is crucial to survival. To address this challenge, we built a different kind of health system – one that removes barriers and brings care to patients proactively. Together with the communities we serve, IHF developed a proactive health care system designed to save lives.
Infants’ Health Foundation (IHF) is a grassroots level organisation that complements and supplements the Government of Uganda’s public healthcare system. By collaborating with government health facilities, IHF provides high-quality healthcare services to marginalized populations in underserved areas, with a particular focus on mothers and children of 0-5 years regardless of their ethnicity, political affiliation, educational background, national origin, religion, or ability. IHF utilizes motorcycle ambulances to dispatch monthly, one-day comprehensive mobile clinics, that visit vulnerable, marginalized communities in remote difficult to reach locations, offering, high-quality and timely free home-based maternal child healthcare services throughout all the pregnancy stages. IHF also evacuates the sickest patients including women in labour to public health facilities. Our nurses in our comprehensive clinics provide antenatal check-ups, vaccinations, birth information, postnatal check-ups, child check-ups, breastfeeding and nutrition information and treatment, HIV tests, anti-retroviral referrals, family planning, pneumonia treatment, diarrhoea treatment, malaria testing and treatment, Sexually Transmitted Infections testing and treatment, counselling, referrals, and other lifesaving services. We believe that Health is a universal fundamental Human Right. No one should get sick and die just because they are poor, or because they live too far from a health facility.
MILESTONE
IHF operates 30 monthly one-day outreach clinics in Namayingo district- each serving about 480 patients. Over 300,000 people have received relevant MCH information through community meetings, radio talk shows, community launches, social media platforms, public events, workshops, motorcycle reflectors, and outreach campaigns. Distributed 2980+ insecticide-treated nets. Transported 626+ mothers for health facility delivery. Referred 125 HIV positive cases for anti-retroviral treatment. Treated and/or screened cases of pneumonia, malaria, diarrhoea, or malnutrition 11,800+ times. 310+ mothers are having voluntary and informed family planning methods. A big number of men now escort their spouses for MCHS. We have trained and equipped more than 130 nurses and midwives with the knowledge and skills needed to deliver safe and respectful care. IHF is not just about providing medical care – it’s about restoring hope, dignity, and resilience to Ugandan communities. By improving healthcare access, we uplift lives, strengthen health systems, and create a brighter and healthier future for all Ugandans. We want to show the world that 2 miles, 3 miles, 10 miles, 20 miles would never stand in the way of a happy life.
Infants’ Health Foundation has won various local, national, and international grants, awards and fellowships including Uganda’s 1st Runner-up and Top Female Entrepreneur of the Year in the 2019 Total Startupper of the year Challenge and received a money prize of Ugx45,000,000. Received a grant of 16 laptops from Labdoo. Won an annual inkind medical supplies grant from Vitamin Angels in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 for Namayingo district (worth Ugx1billion), fundraised and raised Ugx2,800,000 from persons of goodwill which supported us to buy bicycles. One Young World fellowship funded by AstraZeneca through Young Health Programme and attended the Manchester – UK 2022 One Young World Summit as its ambassador. Won a research and travel grant of Ugx30,000,000 from March of Dimes in collaboration with CDC Atlanta and W.H.O – Geneva and presented at the 9th International Conference on Birth Defects & Disabilities in Developing Countries in Sri Lanka with an abstract titled” Role of motorcycles in improving the health status of low-income women living far from health facilities in remote difficult to reach areas of Uganda before, during and after pregnancy. Won a research and travel grant from W.H.O Regional Office for Africa and presented in the Congenital Birth Defects Surveillance Workshop in Kampala – Uganda. Won a travel grant from Preparing for Life – Netherlands and presented in the First European Policy & Expert Preconception Care Summit in the Netherlands. Won Ugx18,400,000 from Tony Elumelu Foundation as the 2021 TEF fellow. Won Ugx4,000,000 from the Commonwealth Youth Awards 2022 as one of Africa’s Regional Finalists. Won Ugx2,775,000 from Sunfamily grant-2023, Ugx3,600,000 from Pollination project grant -2023, Ugx9,600,000 from Namayingo district in partnership with ICELAND for WASH Activities -2023, Ugx52,236,000 from 2024 PEPFAR Community Grant by the US Embassy, and Ugx5000,000 from Peace Corps in partnership with Grassroots Soccer for Sexual and Reproductive Health Project in Namayingo district. Is a 2024 Echoing Green Fellow.
IHF is a member of; Namayingo Implementing Partners Forum, Busoga Adolescent Health CSO Forum, Sub-Saharan Africa Congenital Anomalies Network, The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, World Birth Defects Day Movement, the Civicus, NCD Alliance, the Consortium of Grassroots based Development Partners, The Pollination Project Village. Is also in cohort of the SINA Alumni, Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme Alumni, Commonwealth Youth Awardees, One Young World Ambassadors, AstraZeneca Global Young Health Programme, Total Startupper of the year Ambassadors, The Sun Family Support Awardees, PEPFAR Community Grants Awardees, and Peace Corps Volunteer Host Organisations.
