Conrad N. Hilton Foundation grants $300,000 to Lifenet International

LifeNet International has received a $300,000 grant installment from The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to fund life-saving and life-improving healthcare training with Catholic Sister-led health facilities in Uganda.

Through its growing franchise network of 100 plus facilities, global non-governmental organization (NGO), LifeNet International transforms healthcare for more than one million patient visits every year in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Uganda.

It encompasses a holistic approach by providing both business and healthcare-related training to existing faith-based centers to ensure the delivery of a compassionate, efficient, and enhanced standard of care.

The $300,000 is the second installment in a three-year, $900,000 grant from the Foundation. To date, the grant has enabled LifeNet to establish 10 new partnerships with sister-led health centers in the districts of Bukomansimbi, Kalungu, Luwero, Masaka, and Sembabule in Uganda.

As part of these partnerships, LifeNet trains and equips health workers at the sister-led centers, giving them the power to dramatically improve healthcare outcomes for 56,000 patients in sub-Saharan Africa.

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“Our facility has greatly benefited from LifeNet training,” said Sister Mary, a health worker in the Luwero Diocese. “We were not consistently taking weights for children until we learned during the training that weight was required for correct calculation of medication.

After realising we may have been giving incorrect doses, we have now made it a routine to take every child’s weight to avoid potential errors.”

Sister Mary works as a nurse in a health center in Uganda, where she and her fellow health workers are receiving life-saving medical and management training from LifeNet.  The training is equipping them with the knowledge and tools they need to provide quality healthcare to their patients.

Health workers are learning proper hand washing, which the World Health Organization calls “the building block for infection prevention and control”; compassionate care, which is often overlooked during health worker training; IV insertion; sterilization of instruments; correct medication dosing; financial and organizational management; and other best practices that are saving and improving lives in Uganda.

By 2025, LifeNet plans to double the quality of care received in 20,000,000 patient visits to 1,000 franchised health centers operating in 10 African countries.