Uganda 2016 – Travel Day
The Medical Missions Foundation 2016 mission to Uganda officially starts on Sunday, September 11th. The preparation to get to this moment began last year at the end of the 2015 mission. Records were compiled, budgets were reviewed and a report was made to the Medical Missions FDN board.
It takes a village to pull off a feat like a mission. There is so much effort and passion required to successfully execute an operation of this scale. There are 63 members of Team Uganda this year. We will be serving the people of Gulu and the surrounding area. We are nurses, doctors, students, medical professionals, a firefighter, and other supporting people who fill the roles necessary to execute our mission. We all share a passion to help those in need.
Gulu has a population of around 150,000 people who are serviced by 2 local hospitals: Gulu Regional Referral Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital Lacor. Our mission participants will be working at both hospitals and at 2 clinic locations in the surrounding countryside. They will be serving people who live on $1/day and have no means to receive medical care. Life-changing surgeries will be performed over the course of our days in Gulu. Our clinicians will evaluate and treat around 1000 people who have walked miles and waited hours in stifling heat. They will wait without protest or complaint for their consult. They are the young, the old, the sick and sometimes, the healthy. We will do our best to help everyone in some way. Malaria tests will be conducted for the disease that is now epidemic throughout Southern Africa. Reading glasses and medicines for all types of ailments will be dispensed. Our art team will entertain children and adults alike at all of our locations.
This week, you will meet our team and learn our stories. You will meet our Ugandan partners who live and work in this beautiful nation. You will be introduced to our interpreters who translate complex medical terminology from English to Acholi with ease. You will learn why this mission is important to all of us. Many of our participants are veterans and many are new to the Uganda mission team. We want everyone to be a part of our mission, including you. Your support is vital to our success.
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