Afrigather Dr Olive Sentumbwe Mugisa is a spouse and mom of 4. A Physician of Drugs with a grasp’s diploma in obstetrics and gynecology, Olive is an distinctive Ugandan lady who has labored laborious to realize her profession targets.
Born and raised within the small village of Mawanda, in Kampala, she at all times dreamed of turning into a well being practitioner. She started working as a doctor in a Missionary hospital in Masaka district in 1984. Pushed by her ardour for enhancing maternal and youngster well being in Uganda, she went for a postgraduate in obstetrics and gynecology at Makerere College and labored in Mulago Nationwide Hospital as a well being specialist.
Pushed by her spirit of management and her dedication to battle for girls’s rights, Olive was president of the Uganda Girls Medical doctors’ Affiliation. This platform enabled her to advocate for girls’s well being and to take part within the drafting of the 1994 Worldwide Convention on Inhabitants and Improvement program of labor.
With the necessity to strengthen the maternal well being element within the nation, she joined the World Well being Group (WHO) in 1997.
“Earlier than becoming a member of WHO, I seen that there was a spot in our well being system. The maternal and toddler mortality price was excessive, with greater than 500 maternal deaths per 100,000 reside births”, she mentioned. “That is why I made a decision to work with WHO to interact in strategic discussions to enhance maternal and youngster well being throughout the nation,” she added.
As WHO’s technical knowledgeable on reproductive, maternal, and new child well being in Uganda, Dr Olive helps the nation in adopting evidence-based coverage, norms, requirements, and pointers for the supply of high quality Sexual Reproductive Well being and Rights (SRHR) care. This included the 2018 Males’s Involvement Technique in SRHR/HIV/Tuberculosis (SRHR/HIV/TB), which goals to enhance well being outcomes throughout the nation.
She additionally helps the Ministry of Well being in designing and implementing group consciousness packages. By means of this program, she has been in a position to attain out to numerous civil society organizations working with younger folks and ladies.
Upon becoming a member of World Well being Group, Dr. Sentumbwe labored carefully with Uganda’s Ministry of Well being to pioneer the “Maama Equipment”, an economical intervention to scale back the infections related to childbirth. Right this moment, the Maama package is a must have for all moms due for supply and has additionally been adopted by different nations inside the area.
She additionally led the WHO Making Being pregnant Safer initiative that addressed important maternal well being care gaps in Soroti district. This landmark initiative recognized, and tackled Emergency Obstetric Care issues associated to being pregnant, supply, and post-delivery, together with post-abortion care.
Right this moment, Olive speaks of her achievements with nice pleasure. “The maternal and toddler mortality price has fallen from 524 deaths per 100,000 births in 2000 to 189 deaths in 2022. That is good progress, however we’d like accelerated implementation to realize the worldwide goal of lower than 70 per 100,000 reside births,” she mentioned.
Like many working girls, her major problem has been to reconcile household {and professional} life. Nevertheless, her dedication to realize her targets and the help of her husband has enabled her to discover a stability in her life. “My accomplice has been very supportive. When our youngsters had been younger, we used to share the house responsibilities and nurturing youngsters to scale back the workload,” she mentioned passionately.
On this Worldwide Girls’s Day, “I want to encourage all leaders to make sure that girls’s capacities are enhanced to take larger steps ahead in well being growth and management,” Olive additionally encourages girls and women to be bold, to know their rights, and work laborious to understand their desires.
