Uganda rural clinic meets critical medical needs, brings hope to locals

Photo: A boy admitted this week was treated for a major foot wound, now well on his way to recovery.

In very encouraging news coming from our Uganda team, we are happy to report that our recently expanded rural clinic has been busy at work serving dozens of community members weekly. Just this past week our team was able to save the life of a little boy who suffered a major foot wound. Although the boy lost his big toe we were able to stop the bleeding and treat the wound which otherwise would have likely become infected, a very high risk situation where other modern medical services are non-existent.

The clinic is housed in a facility built over the spring and summer of 2013 on our main campus in the Mayuge district of southeastern Uganda. It contains a 35-bed inpatient ward, several examination rooms, a pharmacy stocked with basic medicines, and offices for medical staff. We have four full time nurses and one resident doctor, and we bring in another doctor twice a week for appointments. As much as funding permits, we hold 2-day medical camps. During the camps we bring in a larger team of doctors, a dentist and more nurses. Although we’re not staffed for full in-patient capacity at 35 beds during a normal week, we do utilize that capacity during medical camps.

Thanks to a local government grant along with profits from our farmland enterprise, last year your donations were doubled to allow for the construction of the expanded medical clinic. Previously our clinic only included an admitting room, a small pharmacy about the size of a closet, an office and one examination room. Land we purchased in 2012 was used for the expansion. The community is grateful for the clinic as it is the only one available to effectively serve the local town and surrounding villages.

In the month of October our local leadership was able to host a small medical team from the US. They were able to provide specialized services, as well as training and consultation for our staff.

Having the clinic on campus with our high school offers an added benefit for these at-risk students, many of whom we board in the school’s dorm rooms. With our vegetable garden providing nutritious ingredients for the students and clinic patients, it’s a completion of the cycle of sustainability that is core to our vision.

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