HAC Annual Report 2018

We are excited to share HAC’s Annual Report for 2018! Read the full report here: HAC Annual Report 2018.

Letter from the Executive Director
2018 was a year of success, opportunity, growth, and challenges for Health Access
Connect. After some lessons learned from difficulty expanding in 2017, we have been able
to reach over 30 villages with monthly outreach clinics! Our vision is to open and manage
mobile outreach clinic services all over Uganda and then beyond. These are some of the
challenges and opportunities we faced so that you can have an idea of what it takes to bring
our services into a village:

1. Community Infrastructure. Within an environment that is not consistent in practices
or robust with resources, we needed to reach out to and establish appropriate
relationships with partners for the delivery of care and outreach clinic oversight.
Community groups were at the center of our model for coordination and oversight of
the outreach clinics, but it can be difficult to find reliable and effective partners. We
found a key partner with community health workers (VHTs). This adjustment has
made a huge difference in the quality and consistency of care.
2. Time to operation. It takes a lot of time, explanation, and assurances to be
welcomed into a village. Sometimes you just have to go in and do it. Our amazing
Field Officers work with the villagers, engaging them and earning their trust. Once
need is established, our goal is to get on the motorcycles and deliver life-saving and
life-improving healthcare as quickly as possible.
3. Talent. For our outreach clinics to expand, our organization must expand. We have a
truly talented staff, but with expansion we need more people going to the villages,
traveling with health workers, and doing what they need to do daily to make the
outreach clinics work.
4. New and deeper relationships. Before we expand to new districts, we need to get
approval from district government officials. As with many government bureaucracies,
it can take a lot of effort and time to get Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs)
signed! After some meetings with our management team, calls with our partners in
Kalangala District, and showing evidence of our success, officials enthusiastically
signed the MOUs!

I hope you see the common thread in all of the above: relationships. People helping people,
people working together to save lives. People like you, who understand and support what we
do and why we do it. This is what we do, on motorcycle, in remote villages, for those who
otherwise will have no access to healthcare. By the end of 2017, we served nine villages. By
the end of 2018, with your continued support, were serving 30 villages. By the end of 2019,
we aim to be in at least 60. All of us here at HAC and I are looking forward to an exciting
year ahead!

Sincerely,
Kevin Gibbons
Executive Director