One of Malcolm’s other interests is Potters Village Crisis and Health Centre for Children in Kisoro, about 3 ½ hour drive from Kisiizi.
This started as a baby’s home form those whose mother died soon after childbirth and the family were unable to care for the baby due to lack of resources to buy formula milk or knowledge on how to care for a baby, as well as abandoned babies.
Later a Health Centre with Special Care Baby Unit was added.
The costs of running the home and some of the costs of the Health Centre are paid from donations raised by the UK Charity, Friends of Potters Village. The main objective of the home is to care for babies until they are weaned and then, when they are about 2 years old, return them to either their wider family of to foster parents. Fortunately in Uganda there is normally a strong community commitment to care for each other so people are often willing to take in those in need from the wider family or community
Sadly an abandoned baby has been brought to Kisiizi Hospital.
The newly born, still with her umbilical cord clamp in place, was
found naked in the bush by some children and brought to the hospital.
Fortunately she is healthy and the staff have named her Angel. She was brought
to morning chapel partly to invite staff to donate towards her upkeep, but also
to make staff aware that she needs someone to care for her.
At Kisiizi we also met with a long term friend, Dr Keith Waddell, who visited the hospital as part of his farewell tour of Uganda.
Keith trained
at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London in Oncology in the early 1960s. Over
60years ago he came to Uganda with the Africa Inland Mission on his way to the
Congo, but was prevented from crossing the border. He has since concentrated on
serving God in Uganda, first in treating those suffering from Leprosy, which
was when he first came to Kisiizi. When that disease was eradicated in the
1970’s he retrained as an Opthalmic surgeon and travelled around Uganda doing
eye surgery, He has restored the sight of thousands of people who had lost hope
of seeing again by removing cataracts and replacing them in the early years
with thick spectacles and later with replacement lenses. More recently he has
become an expert in retinoblastoma, which is an inherited cancer of the
eyes where the only treatment for children used to be removal of both eyes. He
developed pioneering treatments which meant a larger recovery rate and often enabled at least one eye to be saved. He has received a CBE for this work, and was
‘tricked’ into returning to Uganda last October to received an Independance Day
Medald from the President of Uganda. Keith thanked God for his time in Uganda
and noted that his career had gone full circle having begun his training when
Oncology was being pioneered, changed specialisms when he came to Uganda and at the
end of his career combined Oncology with eye surgery.
Finally this weekend the Management team went for a day’s
retreat to reflect on how God has blessed the work Kisiizi hospital and to
begin thinking about His will for the future, focussing on 2028 when the
Hospital celebrates its 70th anniversary. The sessions were led by
the former Medical Superintendent, Ian Spillman and was both a challenging and
encouraging time.
