Ugandan call for youth health centres

A group of organisations that campaign for improvements in the sexual health of young people in Uganda have called for the government to facilitate more clinics dedicated to educating and treating teenagers and young adults.

With problems such as teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases still rife in the country, representatives from the Uganda National Health Users'/Consumers' Organization (UNHCO) used Safe Motherhood Day to make the plea to ministers.

UNHCO is a conglomerate of 25 Civil Society Organisations. According to the New Vision, it issued a statement highlighting what it sees as the most prominent issues. 

It read: "Health crises facing teenagers range from preventable maternal mortality, lack of adequate information and lack of adequate access to reproductive and sexual health services."

Millennium Development Goal 5 aims to significantly reduce maternal mortality by 2015 and teenage pregnancy has been identified as one of the primary causes of the problem. 

However, UNHCO project officer Sylveria Alwoch revealed only seven per cent of Ugandan medical centres currently have a dedicated youth department.