Uganda is a small country in East Africa surrounded by the larger nations of Sudan, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) was established by a government act in 1989, making it the second public university and medical school in Uganda. Being a government funded institution, the university has operated on a limited budget and has been faced with a critical shortage of current medical books, journals, teaching aids and teaching staff. From 2000 to January 2006, in the early years of DGH Uganda involvement, upper level residents, teachers of basic sciences and fourth year medical students with “special permission” were recruited as volunteers to join the teaching staff at the MUST medical school and hospital, spending a one month minimum elective teaching at the hospital, medical school and out-patient clinics at MUST and its surrounding rural areas.
The DGH Uganda project has now shifted to provide residents, primary care physicians and other qualified individuals with an opportunity to offer their services in the Kisoro District at an understaffed rural hospital and outpatient clinics working with local health care providers.
A Village Health Worker Project has been developed in the Kisoro District and is the current placement for DGH volunteers to Uganda. The collaboration between Kisoro District Hospital (KDH) and Doctors for Global Health (DGH)/Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM)/Montefiore Medical Center (MMC) has been ongoing since January 2006 when Montefiore sent its first senior Internal Medicine resident to work in Kisoro Hospital as a DGH volunteer physician.
Since then, the collaboration has grown quickly and significantly, with considerable financial support of KDH and the Kisoro community from DGH/AECOM. Einstein students have rotations in Kisoro in the spring and fall of each academic year. The Kisoro project supports Village Health Workers in 45 villages around Kisoro. A women’s health survey developed and implemented by AECOM students and supervised by Kisoro faculty has grown into the well-received and important Cervical Screening Project, which includes a full-time Cervical Cancer Screening Clinic, with identified leadership for the project and a rotating screening staff. A Chronic Care Clinic has been implemented as well as a Pediatric Nutrition Rehabilitation Project that feeds 150 malnourished children at a time in the 65 village catchment area, and includes an inpatient feeding center.
As our relationship with the community has grown, residents, primary care physicians and other qualified individuals now have the opportunity to offer their services in the Kisoro District at a variety of rural health care centers working with local health care providers through MUST's Department of Community Health.
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