BCH Newsletter Feb 2014 - Bwindi Community Hospital

Bwindi Community Hospital
V O L U M E
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F E B U A R Y
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Little Jackline’s Life saved!
SPECIAL
POINTS OF
INTEREST:

Little Jackline’s life
saved!

A volunteer’s experience
at BCH

Updates about the
UNSB

Surgery for young children is
still a challenge in rural Uganda
where appropriate facilities and
skills maybe inadequate.
Success stories like the one
below help demonstrate the
importance of our services, and
motivate us to continue striving
to improve.
Cervical Cancer-the
silent killer

BCH recognitions

BCH chosen by UNICEF
and USAID
Jackline, a seven year old girl
from Kihihi, had been unwell
for three days with abdominal
pains, vomiting and bloody
diarrhoea. Her mother, Agnes
Niwasiima, first took her to the
private health unit in Kihihi
about 50km (and a two hour
drive) from Bwindi Community
Hospital (BCH).
Jackline plays with other children before discharge.
at the hospital at about 10pm
and were taken to the child
health unit. She was later
While at the clinic, Jackline was rushed to the operating theatre,
diagnosed with malaria and was and the doctors started the
procedure. It took nearly 2
started on treatment.
Unfortunately her condition did hours to correct the problem.
not improve even a single inch. Back on the ward, Jackline was
She was later referred to us.
a very sick little girl, and
While here, our team of doctors needed a lot of care from our
nurses. Soon, however, she
were able to assess her
began to reward our surgical
thoroughly and discovered that
part of her intestines had slid
and child health teams with
into another causing blockage of signs of improvement.
flow of food.
Day after day with the help of
Jackline and her mother arrived our teams and her caring
parents, Jackline improved; her
intestines started working again, and
she was allowed to feed. Ten days
later, Jackline was discharged all
smiles.
Stories like Jackline’s are not uncommon here. They bring joy to not only
the patients and their relatives but
also to us as we come face to face
with the challenges and rewards of
surgery for young children in Bwindi.
We are grateful to Jackline’s mother
for allowing us to publish this story
and use her picture.
Keep up to date with our work
You can now follow us on twitter @bwinditweets, watch recent videos
at our youtube site www.youtube.com/user/bchuganda,follow major
events in pictures at www.flickr.com/photos/bwindihospital, and if you
are on facebook, join our cause at www.causes.com/causes/bwindi.
You can access all these sites from our website at
www.bwindihospital.com
VOLUME
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ISSUE
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A volunteer’s experience at Bwindi Community Hospital
Mission:
Serving Jesus
Christ through
giving holistic
health care
and life in all
its fullness to
the staff,
patients,
clients and
visitors in the
Hospital and
community
staff, it can
be difficult
to find time
for the
quality
improvement projects for
which we
have time 2
-3 days a
week, not
to mention
Dr. Hamish (right) together with the rest of the team attend to a
patient on the ward.
finding time
for the weekly
football and volleyball leagues.
It is 8am. The sounds of singing
These are wonderfully fierce,
in Rukiga (the local language)
and cause controversies that are
and the beat of drums and
discussed long into the evening.
clapping hands ring in your ears.
Clinical work in rural Uganda is
In every direction you look are
fascinating whilst humbling.
steep green hills draped with tea
and coffee plantations.
The late presentation of
A pregnant mother walks past me patients’ means you regularly
see what normally only exists in
with a child strapped to her back
textbooks and the experience of
and a huge bunch of matooke
balanced effortlessly on her head. the staff here at BCH is often all
This is Uganda and it is beautiful. that keeps you straight. Patients’
stories bring to life the reasons
for poor health in rural Africa
Almost every morning starts like
and forever make you reassess
this here at BCH. Monday to
what you take for granted.
Saturday is a normal working
A single journey by car on the
week. It can be hard, but more
roads here tells you why travel
often than not it is deeply reto the hospital takes so long and
warding. Between daily ward
costs so much.
rounds of the Adult Inpatient’s
ward, providing supervision for
A lot of priority is given to
clinical officers in a busy outpamaking our time here as
tient department, receiving
volunteer doctors sustainable.
Rukiga lessons and contributing
Being involved in the
to weekly teaching for clinical
confidential enquiries into local
maternal and child deaths, setting up
chronic care clinics and initiating a
service for those dependent on
alcohol are among some of the
activities that will continue to
develop and improve once we have
left.
After a long day or week on the
wards (or if you are on the losing
side in football), there is always
hiking high in the hills next to DRC,
bumping into gorillas on evening
walks, heading to the forest camps
for a cold beer or mountain biking.
On days off, it is not far to Lake
Bunyonyi to do not very much, and
it is only 3 hours to Queen Elizabeth
National Park and the tree-climbing
lions.
All in, it is difficult to consider your
time here as ‘volunteering’: BCH
and Uganda can enrich your life far
more than any cost of coming here.
A privileged insight into Ugandan
culture, lessons from increased
clinical and administrative responsibilities, and time with colleagues
and people who will remain friends
or mentors for life, are among some
of what I will take home.
Dr Hamish Foster
Volunteer Family Physician BCH
GP Trainee - Glasgow, Scotland.
Updates on Uganda Nursing School Bwindi (UNSB)
Students going for a lecture at the school
The school opened last year with the first intake of 13
students. The second intake will be in May and it will
include two international students who already applied.
The inauguration ceremony is slated for 23rd May 2014
where His Excellency the president of Uganda, Yoweri
Kaguta Museveni is expected to grace the occasion and
all our esteemed partners. You can Support the school
through scholarships.
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3
Cervical Cancer –the silent killer
In October, we received a
cryotherapy machine from the
organisation Program for
Accessible health,
Communication and
Education (PACE).
Vision: A healthy
and productive
community free
from preventable
diseases and with
The Machine treats cervical
cancer when detected in the
very early stages and will
benefit women from the 4
districts of South Western
Uganda.
Most often women report to
care centres late when the
cancer has already spread and
cannot be cured. However,
with this machine we hope to
excellent health
screening at the
hospital including
those at six weeks
after child birth.
Nurse Racheal prepares the cryotherapy
machine
We are immensely
grateful to PACE
for enabling us to
render this much
needed service to
save lives of many.
reverse this trend by
screening all women
aged 21 to 65 years.
We have embarked on
community sensitization
to encourage women to
come for cervical cancer
RECOGNITIONS:
services accessible
BCH winner of the 2013 SEED and PALITA Awards
to all
We were selected a winner of the 2013 SEED Awards by the SEED international
Jury through our partnership with Sustain for Life. The SEED Awards for
Entrepreneurs in Sustainable Development is an annual awards scheme designed to
find the most promising, innovative and locally led start-up social and
environmental entrepreneurs in countries with developing and emerging economies.
BCH has continued to do well offering quality services to the community. Last year
we were acknowledged by Public Opinions Uganda for our contribution towards
the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals and received The Pearl of
Africa Life Time Achievement Award (PALITA award).
We were again ranked the best performing hospital by the UPMB in
Uganda. BCH has consecutively been
ranked the best performing hospital
over the last 5 years in a row by the
same umbrella organization.
Dr. Birungi receives the SEED award certificate from Sustain for Life team
www.bwindihospital.com
BWINDI
COMMUNITY
HOSPITAL
All donation details and links can be found on our
website: www.bwindihospital.com.
You can make a gift aided donation through our
UK charity:
Friends of Bwindi Community Hospital
Details are at:
www.BwindiFriends.co.uk/bwindi/how-todonate.html
You can also make a tax deductible donation
through our US charity:
The Kellermann Foundation
P.O. Box 832809
Richardson, TX 75083-2809
Office phone: 214-519-9279
Email: [email protected]
www.KellermannFoundation.org/donate.htm
In Canada,you can mail in cheques/money orders,
made out to Buy-A-Net, directly to:
Buy-A-Net Malaria Prevention Group
P.O. Box 1063
Kingston, ON
K7L 4Y5
Please earmark the donations for use at Bwindi
Community Hospital.
OR make a direct transfer to our bank accounts in
Uganda with the following details:
Account Name: Bwindi Community Hospital
Bank: Stanbic
Branch: Kihihi
Account Number: 0240064116501
Sort Code: 040147
Swift Code: SBICUGKX
BCH privileged to have been chosen by UNICEF and USAID
Bwindi Community Hospital was recently chosen by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and
USAID Community Connector Team to be an implementing partner of the Uganda Nutrition Action Plan
(UNAP) in Kanungu district. UNICEF and USAID Community Connector Team support the District
Nutrition Community Connector Committee, and two of our staff, Dr. Leonard Tutaryebwa, a Pediatrician,
and Naturinda Nelson, a Hospital Nutritionist and Dietician, have chosen to be a part of this.
UNICEF and USAID Community Connector
Team are supporting this hospital in the
scaling up of nutrition interventions and
management of acute malnutrition. They
provide highly nutritious feeds and also tools
for assessing growth among children.
In conjunction with the hospital garden project funded by sustain for Life, we are working with the community through Village
Health Teams to improve the nutrition status
in Kanungu District. We are very grateful to
UNICEF, USAID and Sustain for Life for
choosing to work with Bwindi Community
Hospital.
Naturinda teaches expectant mothers good nutrition at the hospital Mothers
Waiting Hostel.

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