CURE Hospital

CURE Hospital is one of my favorite places in Mbale. Run by an NGO, called CURE, they specialize in pediatric neurosurgery—mostly spina bifida and hydrocephalus—serving all of East Africa.  You may not know, but my biggest dream (regarding Africa) is to find an underserved population and start a hospital to serve them. So, walking into this hospital was like walking into my dream!

CURE is probably the nicest hospital in Uganda.  It is clean and bright. They have the latest medical technology.  Each patient has their own bed, with clean sheets. They provide support for the family and continually go to the field to find new patients and to check up on old patients. They also have paper-bead-making IGA (income generating activity) for patients, and they sell the necklaces and earrings at the hospital. This is a “charity” hospital, but they do require that patients pay what they can to help pay for the surgery and treatment. Although they do not pay the highest salary, and most of the staff would be making more if they worked at a government facility, they still have a very loyal staff.  These are Ugandans, and other East Africans, who want to make a change and do some good.

In Eastern Africa, especially in the villages, there is a stigma about hydrocephalus and spina bifida. If your child is afflicted with one of these maladies, it is assumed that you (the mother) did something wrong or that the child is bewitched. They become outcasts to society. If left untreated, hydrocephalus causes the brain to swell, resulting in the entire skull expanding, sometimes to grotesque proportions.  Pressure on nerves can cause damage such as blindness. The procedure to fix hydrocephalus is very simple, and the one that CURE uses, is very non-invasive.

I was involved in a project at the hospital it which we volunteers taught nutrition, hygiene and first aid classes to the mothers who were there with their children.  We taught people from Uganda, Sudan, Kenya, and Ethiopia about how to eat a balanced diet, how to wash their hands and why it was important, and what to do if their child fell out of a mango tree. Most of the women were very excited to learn this information and put it to use. I don’t know for sure if every single woman will implement what we taught, but I hope that this knowledge will be a key factor in improving, or even saving, a few lives.

I want to come back to CURE. I don’t know when. Maybe I will do a medical internship there (while we have been here there have been medical interns from the States, Italy, Eastern Europe, and other places).  Or maybe I will just come back to visit. I would love to explore their other hospitals around the world. They are doing a great work and I am grateful for the chance I had to work with them.