In the News
As reported by WFSB Channel 3, August 21, 2007.
Everyday Heroes: Bernadette Kazibwe
Woman's Dream Brings Medical Care To Ugandan
Village
COLCHESTER, Conn. -- Because of the dedication and hard work of a
Colchester woman, medical care has been brought to a Ugandan town.
Bernadette Kazibwe's dream was to improve the Ugandan town where
she was born.
"There's hospitals, but the medical, the medicine is limited over
there," she said. "There are no resources really. I said to my
husband, 'We need to do something.' He said to me, 'What can we do,
we have no money.' I said, 'You know what we can cut a little bit on
what we eat and maybe start something up.'"
Karen Hudson said she's known Kazibwe for six years and is amazed
by her determination to improve lives so many miles away.
"We both worked at the same group home for retarded adults, and
she approached me one day and she showed me a picture, a snapshot of
this piece of dirt in her hometown, in Uganda, and I looked at it
and said, 'Well that's very nice. What is it?' And she said, 'That's
the site for my hospital that I'm going to build.' And she said, 'Do
you want to help me build it?'" Hudson said. "I said 'Sure, OK, tell
me what you want me to do.' It went from there. I didn’t' really
believe it was ever going to happen."
Kazibwe convinced doctors, including an infectious disease
specialist from the University of Connecticut, to help her in
reaching her dream.
"She looked me up," said Dr. Kevin Dieckhaus, an associate
professor of medicine at the UConn Health Center. "I had to admit
that the first time I met here I thought she was little nuts."
Dieckhaus said the area proposed for the health center is
extremely poor. He said that 75 percent of health problems in Uganda
are infectious-disease related.
"There are over 3,000 children that die every day, every day of
malaria in sub-Saharan Africa. Malnutrition is very common. HIV/AIDS
is incredibly common," he said. "In this area, it is estimated that
between 5 to 7 percent of adults have HIV. In this district alone,
there are over 26,000 children that have lost at least one parent
because of HIV."
Hudson that with much determination, Kazibwe was able to open the
health center's doors last month.
"She canvassed, she begged, she borrowed. She asked for
volunteers, we did spaghetti suppers, we did fundraisers, we sold
candy bars, she requested grants," Hudson said.
Kazibwe said opening the center was also a dream of her sister
before she died of cancer.
"I remember my sister talking about how, if she could do
anything, she would bring education to the village," she said.
She said her sister wanted the village to be educated so that its
members could better understand and fight the infectious diseases.
"The thing is, it's not one disease. It's poverty, poverty,
diseases," Kazibwe said. "You can't consider one thing without the
other, so the poverty made it, drove the diseases to be there."
Kazibwe said the medical center has come a long way from the plot
of land she originally had allotted for it.
"You would not believe it. You would not believe it if you had
seen what was done and now they have … medicine arranged in the
drawers. We have an ambulance, we have doctors," she said. "It's
crazy, but it's real."
One of the doctors who volunteers his free time is Dieckhaus. He
recently returned from eight days at the center. Dieckhaus said he
doesn't get paid for his work and he uses his vacation time to go.
Kazibwe said she still has bigger dreams for the center.
"Every morning there are numerous people just sitting outside
waiting for the nurses to show up -- just a crowd of people waiting
to be seen every morning," she said. "We need money to expand, we
need to expand."
Kazibwe's brother, Pius, told Eyewitness News where any donated
money would go.
"Now it is outpatient. We need to have some wards, inpatient so
women who come to deliver. We should have a ward -- women, men,
children, maternity and housing units for medical staff, because
right now, the nurses who are working there commute home -- 4
kilometers walking home."
For information about helping the medical center's cause, visit
its Web site. |
