UgandAshis 12. Fort Portal

UgandAshis 12. Fort Portal.

May 11, 2009
Fort Portal, Uganda

Fort Portal.

A Saturday lazy weekend delay and by Monday I made it. Fort Portal, home of the Toro kingdom, lots of rain and a city in process of bursting on to the map. Oil has been found, gold as well, the tropical rainforest that comes from Congo is sent through Fort Portal. A university has started operating and construction sites are blazing – well Uganda style; pole pole –

My host is a Belgian-Ugandan pastor living in the USA and Uganda doing great work as building a school, health clinic, hospital, educating Batwa (pygmies) who have been forced out of their rain forest in Congo. It is very likely I will be visiting Congo soon. Another dream to come true and a friend found.

Today I visited the regional referral hospital for 4 (or 5) districts. The medical director is in Kampala for budget talks and his acting colleague shows me around the hospital site. Everywhere building is going on, new wards are being constructed and that means that the arrivals are stacked up in temporary shelters. It is not that the builders are unavailable, but the money from the Ministry of Health may be delayed.

I joined one of the 7 doctors (3 gynaecologists, 1 physician, 2 surgeons, 1 medical director) of the 441 bed hospital for the end of his ward round. Out of four new patients three were newly diagnosed with HIV/AIDS coming in with severe malnutrition, oral thrush, chronic cough and diarrhea, seizures or semi comatose.

The HIV tests are available, so is the CD 4 count (indication of the severity of the viral destruction of the immune system’s T-cells) and the Joint Clinical Research Centre so anti retro viral treatment should be given to children, prisoners and vulnerable people. The reality is not so straight forward.

As an example: for 4 months this hospital has been without anti-tuberculosis drugs. That is quite devastating for patients living with a co-infection of HIV/AIDS and TB but also for those suffering from TB alone. TB also kills. As we finished the ward round we discussed the difference between Mulago (county tertiary referral centre) and this hospital. In Kampala at least at lot of diagnostics can be done but they have the same issues with access to drugs. But as the general public is more educated in Kampala when drugs are not available they go to a pharmacy to purchase the drugs themselves.

For a while I will try my hand at working in this hospital. Given the ideal location; view over the Half Moon mountains, proximity to Lake Albert and Congo there is a lot of potential for projects here. Also unlike Kampala and Northern Uganda there are very few NGO’s here and even Ugandan health workers flee the scene for greener, warmer pastures where more money can be earned.

Namaskar, Ashis