Abstract:
The National Health Policy by the Uganda Ministry of
Health (2010) recognizes that Non-Communicable
Diseases (NCDs) and their risk factors are increasing in
Uganda among patients with HIV on Anti-Retroviral
Therapy (ART). The policy mandated the Ministry of
Health to establish a programme for the prevention and
control of Non-Communicable Diseases in all public
health facilities, but NCDs services are lacking at
community drug distribution points (CDDPs) where
patients on ART receive services at. The program fitted
strategies to address the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) to reduce co-morbidities related to NCDs (Maher
et al., 2010).
Description:
The Community-Based Non-Communicable
Diseases (NCDs) services strategy is in tandem with SDG
3, indicator 3.4, which aims to reduce by one-third
premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental
health and well-being by 2030 (Sachs, 2015).
As a response to address SDG 3, the Ministry of Health
(2016) contrived a strategic objective and designed a
policy to implement appropriate HIV and NCDs health
interventions at all public, not-for-profit, and for-profit
private health facilities, targeting the entire population of
Uganda to reduce NCDs and improve the Quality of Life
(QoL) of all Ugandans. The gaps in the strategy for the
WHO (2005), the SDGs (2015), and the MOH (2016)
were that community-based NCDs services were not
being offered to HIV patients receiving Anti-Retroviral
Drugs (ARVs) at Community Drug Distribution Points
(CDDPs). According to the MOH (2016), 70% of the patients on
ART in Wakiso district receive ARVs from the
community. Wakiso District is among the high HIV
burdened districts in Uganda (10.4%), with the highest
number of HIV patients (47,779) on ART (MoH, 2017;
Uganda Population HIV Impact Assessment Report,
2017). However, the patients have an overall poor quality
of life of 56.4% resulting from inadequate NCDs services
in communities (Mutabazi-Mwesigire et al., 2014).
Therefore, the prevalence of poor QoL results in
concurrent morbidity and mortality; and in a malfunction
of the physical, environmental, and social health statuses.
