Elephants and Mobile Clinics in Uganda

​By Luke Husby, DO, and Heather Brown, MDWe arrived in rural Masindi, Uganda, after more than 24 hours of air travel and a five-hour van ride over the only two paved roads in the country. The travel was fairly exhausting.The Masindi-Kitara Medical Centre (MKMC) is a fully functional hospital in Masindi, Uganda, run by Palmetto Medical Initiative (PMI), a nonprofit organization based in Charleston, SC. MKMC has multiple nurses, an inpatient ward, and obstetrics, gynecologic, surgical, and outpatient wards. It recently established itself as a low-cost, self-sustainable, private clinic to offset the two opposing ends of the spectrum with higher end private clinics on one end and sometimes difficult-to-access, free government-run clinics on the other. PMI conducts mobile clinics quarterly in the communities surrounding MKMC. Pictured below is their donated ambulance. It is likely the most highly equipped ambulance in Uganda, because it includes oxygen tanks.​The first two clinic days began at a primary school near the Masindi Hotel where we were staying. A long line greeted us when we arrived. We saw roughly 350 patients on those two days.Four providers and their interpreters sat at desks to see the patients before they went to the pharmacy or the physical therapy/occupational therapy clinic room. All services were free. Referrals were given to MKMC whenever needed for follow-up.​A couple of hundred people waited outside another primary school to be seen on the third day. A...
Source: Going Global - Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs