In the past, access to healthcare in Uganda relied on recipients of care going to healthcare facilities for all their needs, including diagnoses, acute care, routine check-ups, ongoing treatment and medicine access. Many people living with HIV in Uganda are responding well to antiretroviral therapy (ART). Their health is increasingly stable, and they are getting on with their lives; attending school or working to support their families. But every three months, patients on ART need to visit a healthcare facility, sometimes traveling far on foot or by bicycle, waiting for hours to see an overburdened healthcare worker, and then standing in line at a dispensary to pick up their medicines. This is not only inconvenient – it takes time and money if they have to pay for transportation or lost wages if they must take time away from their work. It also contributes to congestion at crowded clinics.
As part of its work to continually improve the availability of medicines and primary healthcare to people in Uganda, the Ministry of Health’s AIDS Control Program has been working with partners like the Africa Resource Centre (ARC) to develop differentiated channel delivery (DCD) and differentiated service delivery (DSD) models to address some of these challenges. The main goal of using DCD and DSD models is to decentralise access to medicine and basic healthcare interventions for chronic conditions and stable HIV patients to make their lives easier, improve adherence to treatment, and decongest healthcare facilities.
