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By Our Reporter

International Medical Centre (IMC) announced the expansion of its Mbale Clinic with an In-Patient Department on Monday.

This expansion drive is aimed at increasing the healthcare services being offered by the clinic and ensure that the people of Mbale and the surrounding area have access to advanced, quality and best healthcare.

Joel Oroni, the General Manager of International Medical Centre says that through the IPD, they will now be able to admit patients with various medical conditions that require appropriate care and attention.

Besides admission, the clinic will continue to offer other services like treatment of minor procedures, general medicine, pharmacology, check-ups, laboratory and specialized tests (including DNA testing, antenatal screenings and services).

“We have equipped the clinic with beds, medical equipment, round the clock availability of dedicated team of professional and specialized medical doctors and nurse,” Mr. Oroni emphasized.

Andre Ackerman, the CEO of International Medical Group congratulated the IMC team upon this achievement and urged the staff to always have people at heart, be innovative and dedicated to ensure that they deliver quality healthcare that meets international standard and continue to be leaders of Uganda’s private healthcare sector.

Growth and Expansion

Currently, International Medical Centre is establishing new clinics, expanding into inpatient in some locations and relocating old ones to better premises to consolidate its mission to make quality healthcare affordable and accessible to all.

According to Joel Oroni, the IMC expansion and growth strategies are aimed at ensuring everyone has access to healthcare that meets international standards within the vicinity of their areas of residence.

“Our growth agenda is meant to bring better healthcare services to people living in communities outside Kampala, so that they do not have to travel long distances to seek quality treatment. Our objective is to have modern facilities with the good doctors and advanced equipment that can be accessed in their hometown” Mr. Oroni noted.

“Despite the covid-19 impact on the economy, IMC will continue with the planned expansion, improving and upgrading our services in the existing clinics and increasing our scope to cover a wide range of healthcare services. We also intend to step into the telemedicine space and maybe able to integrated clinics using technology to bridge the service provision gap and ensure easy customer reach and access to quality and improved primary healthcare service, an aspect that contributes to Universal Health Coverage goal,” Mr. Oroni added.

In-line with Group Strategy

According to Mr. Ackerman, International Medical Group is committed to improving the standards of Uganda’s healthcare through investing in advanced medical technology and service, innovation and offering tailor-made services that cater for the health need of the community, with specialized divisions that best serve that particular society.

“We are dedicated to providing exemplary and quality healthcare to all Ugandans regardless of their geographical location, a factor that sets us apart from other private health service providers. Our focus on clinical growth and expansion is compelled by our commitment to improve lives by bettering the services we provide since healthcare is constantly evolving, with new challenges and new remedies every day. I am proud to say, IMG is up to the challenge,” He said.

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By David Tayebwa.

For the start, I would like to explain what a CMO means and why you should be part as a musician. From my experience in working and engaging with a number of musicians as a Music Industry Consultant, leader of Africa’s A&R and music Licensing firm (Opus Music Publishing Group) and as a music Copyright Expert & tutor, I found out that there are a few people that know about CMOs and what they contribute to the music industry.

In musical terms, CMO stands for Collections Managent Organization and in Africa, I can pick examples such as MCSK (Kenya), SAMRO and CAPASSO (South Africa), COSOTA (Tanzania), COSON (Nigeria) and in Uganda where we have Uganda Performing Rights Society (UPRS). I know that this name sounds familiar especially with the negative publicity that has been echoed through the media and rants about it’s Administration, however that will be another topic for the next time. My focus is to inform you the musician who needs to understand the niche that comes with registering to these organizations that can catapult your career to a higher level by using the knowledge and structures already put in place.

Back to the point, CMOs are bodies that are responsible for licensing music that is Distributed, performed or broadcasted to the public. In simple terms, take PROs to be like tax bodies that collect revenue from businesses and media for the music they play or reproduce to attract customers or earn revenue in some way. So after this body collecting music revenue(also known as Royalties), it distributes this money to musicians attached to it as registered members. Being a registered member is always a prerequisite in order to be able to receive the collected revenue. (Click HERE to know how to register with UPRS, Uganda)
I know you will ask yourself if that is the only reason why you should become a member, though am here to explain some of the other reasons why you should run to register with any local CMO other than just for royalties. You also need to know what other activities they conduct and what kind of rights they administer. There are Organizations that administer compositions while others work with Sound Recordings/ Masters or even one can administer both.

What else do they do?
Before we all reach at the level of giving you Royalties, these organizations conduct activities such as Registration of musical works, assigning identification codes, reciprocal representation, Catalog Administration and licensing. All these are processes they work on to get to collect that revenue which I think you should get to know and use to your advantage to professionalize your career. I will use UPRS for majority of my examples since I have spent much time working with them.

1. Registration of your works. This comes in many levels but the first is at membership registration. Though in many times the process takes up to a months time to become a member, the organization organizes for you a personal indentification code or what they call IPI/CAE codes. These help to differentiate Musician ‘A’ and Musician ‘B’ in the database.
   Secondly after becoming a member, the next process will be to register your works (compositions or Sound Recordings) and this helps to create and identify features on your works called Metadata. These will include information on your works such as track titles, composer, author, label, Producer, publisher, track duration, year of release and splits incase the song was created by many contributors. All this information helps then to assign a standard identification code; International Standard Musical Works Code (ISWC) for Compositions while International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) for sound Recordings/Masters.
   All these help you to be identified as the rightful owner of these works when they feature on the Global Songs Database. Now you see that you can easily be identified as a musician globally because of the CMO? Some user apps like Shazam use this metadata to present to you the song identifying service.
2. Catalog Administration. These organizations are able to administer over a vast Catalog starting from that one track you have so far to even tens of thousands (if not Millions) of songs and to time immemorial. When also Administration this catalog they will help to generate music consumer insights and reports which you can acquire at your discretion in order to know your local audience. In what I know atleast UPRS is growing from using Sample techniques of gathering user information to use scientific or technology enabled reporting. Thanks to Fezah Monitoring App that has improved this through the Partnership they had. In another way, you can also play a big role of providing such information through SetList submissions. Since most of you perform your own music, I think you have a task of updating UPRS on what stages you have Performed on so that they follow up on those licenses.
3. Music Licenses. Every CMO has a task of licensing and Collecting Royalties on behalf of the members. These royalties are generated in many ways including; Blanket Licenses, Performing royalties(radio, hotels, lounges, bars), mechanical Royalties (Distribution and renting of songs, streaming and downloads) and Synchronization Royalties (for videos in adverts, films, Documentaries, TV shows and social media).
4. Reciprocal Representation. Local CMOs under CISAC (International Confederation of Music Societies) do sign agreement with societies in different countries/territories to represent the other. That means that if UPRS signed a reciprocal agreement with COSON, they will both administer each others catalog in that territory and actually collect Royalties accrued if your music was performed or broadcasted in that country.

To conclude this, local CMOs play a vital role in effectively administering over your musical works despite a few hitches that come with the management and Administration of these organizations.
To my side, I think it is much safer to always first register your works in a CMO of your birth/resident country. I know that tech can now enable us to just skip the local CMO to register with the one from another country but also know your target audience first. In many ways, your songs will get much audience from your local fans and it will mean a lot when you start with your large audience, because that’s where CMOs can collect for you much revenue.
Lastly, I wish to educate, inform and skill more musicians and professionals on how we can grow and sustain our ever-growing African Music Industry through a book series “THE MUSICPRENUER” that am writing. Sooner than now wait for my first Book Edition starting with “Understanding Uganda’s Industry and Music Markets.”

About Author:
David Tayebwa is a Ugandan musician (Guitarist), advocate, music tutor and African Musicprenuer. He is the Founder of Opus Music Holdings Ltd (a music Publishing, Record Label and Music Royalty Financing Enterprise) and a Music Copyright Expert/Music Administration Consultant.

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Dr. Carole Sekimpi, the Country director Marie Stopes Uganda addresses media

By Our Reporter

Uganda should invest more in healthcare and education to realize an accelerated economic growth. This is according to a report released by Marie Stopes Uganda on Friday.

The report which was released in commemoration of the World Population Day was aimed at highlighting how Uganda can leverage her population dynamics for a resilient future amidst Covid-19.

While there is no silver bullet intervention, Dr. Carole Sekimpi, the Country director Marie Stopes Uganda said that investment in three sectors — health care, education and labour is more likely to help Uganda achieve the demographic dividend.

The demographic dividend refers to the accelerated economic growth that begins with changes in the age structure of a country’s population as it transitions from high to low birth and death rates.

“Some women have many children because of the fear that some will die, but if they see that the survival rate is improving then the urge to have many children is likely to reduce.” Dr. Carole Sekimpi explained, adding that, “we then must invest in education so that the population is skilled and can make a meaningful contribution to the economy. “

Uganda is predominantly young population with 49% said to be below 15 years. It also has a total fertility rate of 5.4%, maternal mortality rate of 316 per 100,000, and teenage pregnancy rate at 25% which is amongst the highest globally.

The data further shows that one in every four girls aged 15 -19 years is already a mother or pregnant with her first child.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a further increase in teenage pregnancies among adolescent girls and young women as a result of limitation in access to family planning services and lack of information.

Peter Ddungu, the Project Director at Marie Stopes Uganda says there was a significant drop in demand for sexual and reproductive health services as the country went into lockdown mid-March as a combative measure against the spread of Coronavirus.

“We had to recall our outreach teams and regional staff in April, and this saw us make just a fraction of our normal volume.” Peter Ddungu explained.

However, there has since been a realization that  sexual and reproductive health services are essential and demand urgent and sustained attention and investment amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ensuring availability of family planning SRH services during this crisis is critical to preventing the long-term vulnerability of unplanned pregnancy, unsafe abortion, and other reproductive health challenges including gender-based violence which has increased with the current lock down.

“We still anticipate to hit our initial annual target in service impact for the year 2020 but the cost of delivery will go up as we adopt the guidelines issued by Ministry of Health such as social distancing and wearing personal protective equipment.” Ddungu added.

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By Our Reporter

Jackie Namara Rukare has been installed as the new President of the Rotary Club of Kitante. She was inaugurated on Thursday during a ceremony held at Protea Hotel.

Speaking during the installation, Jackie Namara revealed that she will focus on creating opportunities that strength the leadership of the Rotarians as well as helping their members and service project community embrace healthy living during her tenure.

“Rotary International President has challenged the rotary community to embrace change, diversity and to be impatient and persistent to make a positive impact in the world.” Jackie Namara said in her speech.

“We will continue our service work in the slum of Kamwokya and further plan to refurbish and equip the maternity ward at Kamwokya health centre to provide women served by this health centre with a dignified and safe delivery experience.” She added.

Jackie is a chartered marketer and a fellow of the chartered institute of marketing of the UK. She has over 18 years experience in marketing and communications in FMCG, beverages, telecommunications and financial services.

She succeeds Robert Ssemakula as the third President of the Rotary Club of Kitante. The club was was started in February 2018, breaking away from Rotary Club of Kampala to become club 100 in Uganda.