Uganda has the 3rd highest global burden of malaria cases .
Estimated deaths in 2019 was 13,576 . Of these deaths
a year earlier , 1,768 were of children under age 5.
(Source: WHO World Malaria Report 2020 )
In May, 2022, Don Grossnickle, a church deacon in Arlington Heights, Illinois, is making his fourth visit to Uganda, Africa to resume his five years of mission work with seven struggling private clinics he has helped organize to save lives of treat mothers and their babies dying from Malaria.
During his absence, a 72-year-old woman named Mother Teo has for several years been devoting body, mind, and soul to help establish these clinics in a country impoverished by years of civil violence and poverty caused by forced absence of government income tax and vast rural areas where often the only means of reliable transportation is by motorcycle.
What follows here are excerpts of communication of Don Grossnickle's mission work over the past year .
Missionary Grossnickle and his heroine Mother Teo
I In May, 2022, Don Grossnickle, a church deacon in Arlington Heights, Illinois, will make his fourth visit to Uganda, Africa to resume his five years of mission work with eight struggling private clinics he has helped organize to save lives by treating mothers and their babies dying from Malaria. During his absence, a 72-year-old woman named Mother Teo has for several years been devoting body, mind, and soul to help establish these clinics in a country impoverished by years of civil violence and poverty caused by forced absence of government income tax and vast rural areas where often the only means of reliable transportation is by motorcycle. What follows here are excerpts of communication of Don Grossnickle's mission work over the past year.
(from Don's email on Dec. 22, 2021) Seventy-two year-old Mother Teo Nakawundu has been a midwife nurse for 50 years. She is the founder of a private non profit hospital in a cluster of small farming villages in Nakifuma, Uganda. I am honored to be able to share her story as told by Teo to her daughter Everlyn and me.
Mother Teo and staff at St Jude Hospital Clinic and Surgery Center have become mentors and teachers. By sharing their abundant experience, wisdom and leadership they have become a driving force throughout Uganda in healthcare. Now, as Uganda’s healthcare system is growing in line with runaway birth rate, Mother Teo’s improbable success story describes how she has managed to survive and thrive while other clinics have been forced to close.
Teo’s story provides a historically annotated review of a what is described as a slow emerging history of childbirth in a young independent post colonial Africa.
Uganda’s ancient culture of the past was supported on a foundation of mostly successful deliveries by traditional birth attendants. But now, healthcare standards are on the rise. Certification of trained midwives carry out the majority of delivering babies. Midwives are preferred to traditional birth attendants(TBA), which the government banned in 2010.
An explosive birth rate has stimulated a clarion call for more midwives in private practice or serving in a religious affiliated clinic or hospital. Uganda devotes a sizable portion of its national wealth in implementing efforts to develop a national healthcare system of hospital and clinic network.
Political strife and a rocky road of turmoil brought on by military dictatorship has hampered attention paid to the health and welfare of Uganda's current population of over 2 million persons. Mother Teo’s story traverses the ups and downs of reducing the mortality rate for mothers and babies suffering from a lack of accessible facilities and trained midwives all across a cast country. Malaria, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases complicate Teo’s and others' attempts to provide care for a mother's birth process. Poverty prevents most mothers from paying for private services. Public services are most often not accessible, especially in rural farm and undeveloped areas.
Mother Teo herself gave birth to 5 children and adopted 3 more. She has been the inspiration behind my mission work.
II Mother Teo’s Plan to Save the World
As I began my work in Africa to make a dent in the terrible malaria scourge, I observed Mother Teo saving the lives of several new mothers who had recently delivered a child along with complicated, advanced cases of malaria fever of the brain and other vital organs. Blood transfusions, injectable medicine and intensive care were directed by Teo and a few poorly paid staff members. Teo’s plan was a stubborn commitment to do everything in her power, including going into debt, in order to supply the medicine to save lives under her care.After much fumbling around and looking for a practical strategy to combat malaria, I came up with a focus on supporting the midwife nurses who run multipurpose clinics like Teo. I resolved to let midwives and clinics concentrate on doing the healing. I found that many private not- for- profit clinics freely give medicine and services to indigent mothers and children and, as a result, are nearly always broke. They have no money for medicine, no money for staff, no money to purchase and maintain equipment. When they reach the breaking point and a shortfall of funds, they reach out for loans. Banks refuse their requests, considering them a poor investment with a predictable outlook of their clients being mired in a cycle of debt with no solution in sight as a remedy.
But who can turn away a mother about to deliver her child and send her on her way to beg for services at a far distant public government funded hospital?
Indigent moms and children know that begging is risky; many who are ill or injured are discouraged and give up, afraid of making a futile journey. One answer to support midwives and clinics we have embraced is to form a village-based coalition of leaders to address these financial problems.
Microfinance has become globally popular as a solution to address poverty by making funds available beyond strict limits of bank loans. Microfinance can boost a business startup and produce a profitable income. Today, our U.S. based microfinance, non-profit partners are working midwives, clinic leaders, midwives and local leaders to create local coalition businesses that can channel funds for the maintenance and operation of clinics that save lives. We now have eight, but need so many more!
III Teo. the Heroine of Don's Future BookTeophista Nakawundu is the hero narrator of the book I am writing. It's about one of her stories as a nurse midwife founder of St Jude Clinic located in Nakifuma village, which is situated in the center of this developing country of Uganda. Teo’s clinic is named after St Jude, and that is the only overtly religious signature presence in her private clinic. Teo is closely connected to local religious, but keeps maintaining a line of independence in running her establishment. Teo's true stories unfold from rural tribal life today in villages whose people and culture reflect post-colonial and civil war torn Uganda East Africa. Dictators rule and politics are strained.
From a dream as a little girl repressed by culturally embedded discrimination against undervalued females, Teo persisted in her desire to become a nurse midwife. In Uganda, bicycles and motor bikes are the usual mode of transporting expectant mothers to Teo's clinic. There, local midwife skills encounter problems, calling for expert assistance to save mother and /or child.
This book of short stories shares details that illustrate how Teo’s extraordinary life as just one person can dramatically alter in positive ways the lives of hundreds or thousands. She strives tirelessly to offer each child a chance to be born with an opportunity to prosper as a human being.
Mother Teo’s is the name well deserved not as a nun from a religious order of service but for her extraordinary compassion and generosity.
Teo’s story serves as a historical chronicle of timeline for situations involving of the most basic midwife help in villages brought forward from ancient tradition in her clinic today with microscopes, labs, ultrasounds, incubators and anesthesia. Unlike governments that provide healthcare and pay for their government's staff, services and medicine, Uganda cannot meet these same needs Thus, Teo is on her own, struggling for money. The majority of patients coming to her cannot afford to pay anything. Somehow, Teo must pay for staff and supplies. In 2013, U.S. visitors became aware of the financial plight Teo faces and as my book narrates, now stand with her as she embraces ideas to bring in funds so that her clinic can remain open.
Each of the stories in my book reveals Teo’s ever deepening spiritual story. The rosary beads around her not worn for decoration. They are, she believes, to proclaim her mission as a partnership in which she and God serve together.
Daughter Everlyn informed me: “Why is Teo lovingly called, Mother Teo? She is not a religious sister, or a nun, or mother superior. Teo earned her stripes first experiencing motherhood for 5 babies of her own." She added: "Mother Teo is my mother and we together have some true stories to share: funny ones, sad ones, joyful times, times of surprise and shock. Birthing babies is “blood, sweat and tears” and we midwives strangely welcome that experience. "
In seeing over 100 patients a day, Teo leans on her daughter, Everlyn, loyal doctor and staff. Everlyn (my book's co-author and a university trained nurse midwife) is, of course, her mother's assistant. Both women are to expand the St Jude Clinic story and share success with other Uganda clinics bringing health and life to mothers, babies, and growing children as a priority.
IV Some Back Stories of Mother Teo's Rugged Coming of Age
For 50 years Mother Teo, now 72 years of age, has been a strident supporter of caring for mothers and children. Teo has carved out a rare niche as humanitarian healer business woman ever since 1971 and opening her private clinic serve the poor.
She is a rugged survivor. When I met her for the first time in 2013 she was nearly bankrupt, unable to pay her staff swamped with in past due invoices for medical supplies. Her applications for bank loans were rejected. Teo was discouraged, but never ready to surrender.
By working together with some generous benefactors in a community near Chicago, little by little Teo became encouraged and never wavered. Stronger and stronger, Teo gained financial support supplied in care packages arriving like Christmas gifts sent by her yet unknown American friends. Teo’s humble clinic turned a corner, attracting more and more patients who could pay for services and retire her debt. A steady stream of indigent, penniless mothers and children came to Teo. She met them, I know, with an endless smile.
Surprisingly , Teo says, the tide of defeat gradually retreated. Nowadays, she looks skyward, holding the rosary clung around her, and prayerfully says, “to God be the Glory”
Bob Schwarz has made three
trips to different African
countries to conduct leadership
workshops for Lions Clubs
International, the world's
largest volunteer service
organization.
Donations are welcome directly to : MAAPF
Microfinance Alliance Africa Projects Foundation Post Office Box 1471
Arlington Heights, IL 60006 ; or at website http://www.MAAPFOUNDATION.0RG
The End
All comments welcomed at
© 2019,2021,2022 Robert R. Schwarz
Supplemental Information for the reader:
A double challenge: Tackling COVID-19 and malaria in Uganda (from World Health Organization )
30 November 2020
Kampala – A month after Uganda instituted stringent measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, the threat of another disease outbreak prompted a new nationwide campaign: “Why survive COVID-19 and die of malaria?” rang a slogan on the airwaves.
Uganda confirmed its first case of the virus in late March, coinciding with the start of the rainy season when malaria infections surge. With curfews and lockdowns limiting movement, and fear of visiting health facilities and a strained health workforce cutting back consultations, health authorities launched the drive to shore up malaria prevention and treatment.
Malaria is the leading cause of death in Uganda. In 2019, it claimed 4000 lives and infected more than 13 million people. With the movement restrictions, malaria infections were projected to increase by 22% and the number of deaths to double, says Dr Jimmy Opigo, the Assistant Commissioner for Health Services at the Ministry of Health, citing a WHO and Lancet study.
Hospital admissions for malaria dropped: 47 775 admissions were recorded in May compared with 68 856 in May 2019. “So our main advocacy message was that both diseases were to be fought together,” Dr Opigo explains.
The supply of critical material for malaria control also suffered disruptions. The production lines of many biomedical firms shifted towards COVID-19 supplies, slowing down the manufacture and distribution of materials such as rapid test kits for malaria, says Dr Bayo Fatunmbi, who heads the disease prevention and control team at the World Health Organization (WHO) office in Uganda.
Poverty in Uganda: Causes and Strategies for Reduction with Great Emphasis on Ethics and Ecological Justice
By Grace Lubaale
Department of Teacher Education and Development Studies, Kyambogo University Kampal,Uganda
[ Note : Printed verbatim below are excerpts from Ms Grace Lubaale artcle. ]
Although Uganda is among the Sub-Saharan African countries that registered the highest rates of poverty reduction, the country remains among the poorest in the world…. Uganda remains one of the poor countries in the world despite significant poverty reduction which underscores the need for more governmental commitment, ethics and ecological justice as well as global contribution….Uganda…is still lagging behind in several important non-monetary areas like sanitation, access to electricity, education (completion and progression), child nutrition, unethical conduct and ecological injustices.
Ethical: There is great deal of unethical practices in Uganda that continue to perpetuate poverty in Uganda. These practices are majorly manifested in corruption, stealing resources, drunkenness, sexual immorality, smoking, drug consumption, tribalism and witchcraft yet the country is more than 99% religious (Christians are 86% and Muslims 13%) (UBOS, 2016)…. Tribalism is the act of favoring people of your speech community visa via people from other speech communities and is caused by bad governance. Tribalism is responsible 12 Poverty in Uganda: Causes and Strategies for Reduction with Great Emphasis on Ethics and Ecological Justice for the political instability and conflict in most African countries evidenced by civil wars and crises in Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Ethiopia and Nigeria (Kinoti, 1997). The effect of tribalism in Uganda has been colossal in terms of death and suffering, poverty, inequalities and regional imbalances, hatred, conflicts, economic loss and under development… Tribalism blinds people to the truth and justice. No doubt therefore, that the prevalence of poverty in Uganda is due to corruption and tribalism, in addition to bad governance.
Ecological: One of the development crises in the world and Uganda inclusive is this separation. Economic growth, which is part of development, is sometimes promoted to the detriment of human values like displacement of people, high taxes, and ill health or of the environment like pollution and degradation which are now hitting hard Uganda and the world at large…. Therefore, the above issues clearly indicate that moral and ethical failure (bad governance, tribalism, corruption, nepotism, dishonesty, laziness, and embezzlement) is at the center of the prevailing ecological injustices which are creating political and socio-economic crisis in Uganda that has given birth to poverty due to low returns from the environment.
Social: Social Social inequalities and tensions majorly steaming from gender, cultures, and religion have indeed created fighting’s, violence’s, resource abuse and eventual poverty. Religious differences (among Christians, Christians verse Muslims) and cultural differences in terms of speech, traditions, customs, beliefs and practices have been at the center of controversies, suspicion and counter suspicion, and violence that have led to several deaths, family breakdown, discrimination in the allocation of resources, distribution of benefits and access to services hence poverty on defeated groups. Polygamy, domestic violence, separation and divorce are cited as causes of poverty whereby many women suffer years of beatings to avoid the consequences of family break-up and the food insecurity that often follows loss of access to productive resources such as land.
Economic: Economic growth remains low in Uganda because productions centres, factories, and investments are not matching the international standards and the increasing population. Therefore, such economic imbalances indeed limit income increase and wealth creation hence poverty…. Another leading cause of poverty in Uganda is the prevalence of diseases (such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, TB,EBOLA etc) due partly to inadequate and poor health facilities. When a household is affected by any of these diseases, the little resources are spent on treating the sick. In a worst case scenario where the bread winner dies, those who are left behind have no resources to support themselves, thus leading to poor lifestyles.
Political: The political stability and the investment climate of Uganda are unpredictable. Uganda experienced a lot of political turmoil between 1964-1987 which greatly affected production, exports, and investments and tainted the image of the country outside as a bad place to invest particularly with the expulsion of Asians in 1972… Increasing insecurity in Uganda with killing and kidnapping of investors, women and other people, brutal police force, have all affected investments hence low capital inflow, business, hence limited income and consequently poverty.
Poverty can only be fought in the presence of strong institutions, and equitable distribution of resources. This requires a non-corrupt government. However, in Uganda, programmes designed to fight poverty are not fully implemented because the funds end up in the hands of corrupt individuals, who pocket the majority…. Ugandans must forgive the colonialists, historical distortions and past/present leaders who have undermined Uganda’s development because of their selfish interests in order to forge a way forward. In other words, Ugandans must stop criticizing the colonialist and past leaders’ activities because there is no solution in criticism and just forge a way forward. And I am firm on this position because most Ugandans (writers or teachers or politicians) spend more than 75% of the time merely talking or criticizing colonial/past leaders’ activities without providing solutions because solutions are not found in criticism but only in dialogue and forging away forward. As Marc De Bodt says: “worrying is like a rocking chair, it keeps you moving, but it gets you nowhere”! Ugandans must move on and shape their course of development.
Leaders and nations which have hurt Uganda must start off by apologizing. This should be followed with making good of the resources stolen, compensation and reparations like for some of the Ugandan art found in the museums in the developed countries. Available means and forums should be used and the church should take a central role in forgiving, apologizing and reconciling Uganda and the rest of the world…. Justice, Ethics, and Moral rehabilitation is needed in Uganda. The whites and others leaders should change their attitudes towards Ugandans as being inferior to being equals as human beings searching for justice on this planet. Dialogue, in the interest of Uganda and justice, is what Uganda needs not aid. The country has been humiliated and impoverished through mechanisms presupposed to help it but only caused poverty. This must end with establishment of dialogue and justice…
Religious institutions should take a leading role in moral rehabilitation and the Government should set up tough sanctions for immoral people with firm implementing agencies… Religious leaders should also lead by example by getting involved in sustainable resource management projects and activities… Religious leaders and organizations actively should engage in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs, in their communities, in their own organizations, and in cooperation with each other. Religious scholars should continue to engage in dialogue amongst themselves and with the scientific community, to continue to support the progressive evolution of religious thinking and scientific discovery. Furthermore, by building guidance for sustainable development that addresses the moral, ethical, spiritual, and practical responses needed to transform the paradigm for a shared destiny… Ugandans must stop relying on foreign solutions and aid to their challenges. They should remember some of their sayings like “borrowed water does not quench thirst” (In Lusoga, one of the languages in Eastern Uganda, it is rendered thus: “Amadiamasabbetigawonyandiwo”). I do not mean to stop completely from borrowing because it is not health but such borrowing should be conditioned to holistic development of Uganda. Ugandans must reject aid, ideas, theories, models, policies and programmes from the West that humiliate and create dependence.
No comments:
Post a Comment