Annual Activity Report 2022

The outstanding achievement this year was the founding of the Technical Unit with its own automotive workshop. This has reduced our repair costs as well as vehicle downtime by more than half. We expect a further reduction in vehicle repair costs for the coming year due to this measure. Since both trainers for the automotive sector were on long-term sick leave this year, we had to postpone the professional qualification of mechanics until next year.

The vehicle imports that were stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic were completed. We now have four state-of-the-art European-standard ambulances and two fire trucks available for our training sessions in the coming year. Both fire trucks are not large vehicles and therefore cannot cover all areas of training, but technical assistance in traffic accidents can be successfully trained with them. I will try to buy a decommissioned, large fire truck from the government and refurbish it. This will be significantly cheaper and more manageable than importing one.

The second nationwide Uganda Emergency Society Congress in Mbarara was a great success. We were able to present modern medical technology and innovative rescue vehicles and draw attention to the poor training situation. Many new contacts and acquaintances were made, which we will deepen in the coming years. A cooperation with the Ugandan Red Cross and the Coastguard has already emerged, and we are actively involved in their training on modern emergency rescue and handling of modern medical technology.

We have laid the foundation for an occupational association for emergency services, to which almost all larger organizations and companies have joined. With this action, we want to promote nationwide equipment standards and uniform training. In the future, we will also approach the government together to obtain better passage rights for toll roads and checkpoints. This saves a lot of time in emergencies.

We are working with the Ministry of Health Uganda and the Mbarara General Hospital on an Ebola task force for faster containment of Ebola outbreaks and targeted training for nursing staff.

This year, we started to equip the police in the surrounding districts with identical reflective vests to the ones we use. The labeling is also the same for both: "Uganda Police & Kilimanjaro Doctors - Safety, Protection and Health".

The government's approval to do so is a very clear sign of recognition on their part. Thus, another milestone has been achieved this year.

We will not further expand direct assistance to emergency patients, as it is too costly and requires too much staff. We will limit this to the Kajjansi district, near the station in Namulanda, and to particularly large emergencies such as bus accidents with many injuries.