Through MAF’s support, children with conditions like hydrocephalus and spina bifida are able to receive life-changing surgery at CURE Children’s Hospital.
One out of every 1,000 babies are born with hydrocephalus worldwide, many families not able to afford surgery.
MAF flies CURE Children’s hospital’s medical team from Tororo in eastern Uganda, to Mbarara in western Uganda for a medical camp, offering a rare surgery to children with hydrocephalus, spina bifida and epilepsy.
Doctor Shadrach Kisa, CURE’s clinical service supervisor, is one of the passengers on board the MAF flight.
“We’d been traveling by road. It’s more than 500 km and we would take more than 12 hours to get here to see patients,” he said.
“MAF has reduced our journey to only four hours, and our team arrived safe and fresh to work.”
One of the more than 100 patients seen today is baby Reagan Mwizukye.
Reagan’s head started swelling two months after his birth. When he was diagnosed with hydrocephalus after a scan that cost his parents 400,000 shillings, the hospital asked for 3.8 million shillings to do the surgery to treat it, but they couldn’t afford it.
“We took him to a traditional doctor who cut his head with a razor blade, promising that he would be well. But instead, the head was swelling even more,” said Reagan’s mother, Promise Nasasira.
Shortly after, Reagan developed high fevers, and they rushed him to another clinic. There, a doctor advised them to take him to CURE Hospital.
“I’m very grateful to CURE Hospital. They performed a free surgery on him, and he has improved greatly,” Reagan’s mum says. “I’m optimistic that my child will even begin to sit and walk because after the surgery, he stopped crying and started feeding and playing.”
Unlike Reagan, several babies with similar conditions have died at the hands of traditional healers who use crude methods on them.
Baby Kyalimpa Bukenya’s mother was advised to get rid of her baby.
“My neighbour outrightly told me she could never keep such a child. She advised me to kill him and move on with my life,” she says.
Bukenya developed hydrocephalus after his spina bifida surgery. Doctors confirmed the condition can develop secondarily.
“I’m grateful to CURE because my child can now sit by himself. He has even become mobile.”
At four years old, Bukenya can even count from one to ten.
“I cried a lot because I thought my baby was going to die,” said Juliet Namagembe, the mother of Maria Assumpta, another child who received the lifesaving spina bifida surgery at CURE Hospital.
Like Kyalimpa’s mother, Juliet was advised to abandon the baby.
“My husband’s sister advised me to throw the baby away because the situation was hopeless, but I couldn’t do such a thing. CURE doctors operated on Assumpta and she’s now 10 years old,” she said.
Doctors suggest that if these conditions are detected during pregnancy, surgery can be done immediately after the child is born, giving them a higher chance of living a healthy life. Most mothers in rural areas in Uganda rarely attend antenatal visits during pregnancy, and those who do almost never receive a scan.
MAF has previously flown babies from South Sudan to have their surgeries in Uganda, but a new partnership agreement means that MAF is also flying hospital staff between various locations in Uganda, such as Tororo to Mbarara.
“This partnership means that our staff will now put more time to patient care,” said Doctor Shadrach.
On this trip alone, a team of seven doctors have been able to see slightly over 100 patients in a single day.
Edith Arinitwe is the mother of Simon, another child who received the transformative surgery.
“We appreciate MAF!” she said. “They should continue flying CURE to Mbarara because they are doing a great job.”
STORY & PHOTOS / DAMALIE HIRWA