Comings & goings... or staying put!

Helen Davies with her daughter Bronwen

Kisiizi has always been blessed with a great mix of visitors for short or longer term visits.  George and Doreen Wadsworth return regularly to help in various ways which is much appreciated.  Helen Davies, wife of the late Dr. John Davies who had served as Medical Superintendent in Kisiizi for 10  years from 1967 visited and we had a lovely evening with a group of staff, ex-staff and contacts who had known John.  It was clear he made a huge contribution and helped to give Kisiizi stability during politically challenging times.

Queuing to vote on the Kisiizi Hospital Primary School playing fields

Meanwhile it has been election time here in Uganda and the question was who would come, who would go and who would stay?!  Thankfully for the most part the period has been peaceful though there were some sad events in Kasese after the main elections.  There are still court cases etc challenging the results and we pray the country will remain peaceful.




Stephen Burgess, Africa Region Director of Church Mission Society visited and it was good to show him the many changes since his last visit.  Ruth Sloman is a midwife who is volunteering with us for a year and Dr. Sarah Band is a junior doctor here for four months.  We have also had groups from Tonbridge Baptist Church and from Cheeers Kisiizi! charity based in Dublin to plan visits from teams in April and the summer.

Sadly we said goodbye to Sister Moreen, wife of Dr. Gabriel, who will be based more in Kampala as the children have moved to schools there.  We miss her already.

Dr Jonathan Jones (right) and team with Kisiizi staff
following a Trauma training workshop session

Dr Jonathan Jones and  a team came out for an intense week of practical clinical orthopaedics plus running a course on trauma for our staff which was really useful.  One of the team is a colo-rectal surgical specialist and it was clearly God's timing for him to come with the team as our Chaplain, Rev. Joshua, was found on endoscopy to have a tumour and this was successfully removed the same day rather to his surprise!  He is now making a good and steady recovery.

Samuel Mugisha of Innovation-Streams came with colleagues to help progress the Stre@mline IT project.  We have finally received the first quarter funds from the grant we won from the Uganda National Council for Science & Technology (one of only six grants awarded for over 150 applicants).

Dr. Keith Waddell and his team from Ruharo Eye Centre in Mbarara came once again to run an Eye Safari and we had the joy of once more seeing many with cataracts regain their vision.

And in the last few days we welcomed a group of 14 from Kiwoko Hospital to Kisiizi to visit various departments to share ideas, innovations and solutions to challenges.

Colleagues from Kiwoko Hospital with members of the Kisiizi team