Last Saturday saw the ECS team return to Lugazi, the sugar capital of Uganda, as a follow-up to our earlier trip.
After driving to the sugar plantation worker's village, we were directed to the home of Doreen and Sharon, younger siblings of Moses, the 4 year old boy who was sacrificed a little over two weeks ago.
On arrival it was shockingly obvious that while Sharon's health had improved, Doreen had deteriorated very significantly. She was unable to see through her puffed-up eyes, her colour was a mix between white and yellow, her skin was shiny like it had been burnt, her arms and legs were very skinny and her tummy was bloated.
After Sam interviewed the mother and auntie (further to our investigations into Moses's sacrifice) and Shelin interviewed the father (also in relation to the child sacrifice incident) we drove back to Lugazi to speak with the doctor we had previously paid to look after the two girls. He was very pleased with the progress of Sharon but not Doreen. To be honest, we weren't very pleased with his support of Doreen.
After discussing the issue with Peter Sewakiryanga we decided to bring Doreen and her father into a Kampala hospital where she would receive more specialised assistance. It was clear that she was in a very critical state.
We paid for the father to catch a Boda Boda home to gather together some personal belongings for his visit to Kampala. While he did this we drove to Jinja to grab some lunch at the source of the Nile. We enjoyed some fish (Telapia) and chips - although we had to wait for 1 1/2 hours while they caught the fish and grew the potatoes!
After returning to the Lugazi clinic to collect Doreen and her father, we drove into Kampala. During our drive home we were saddened to see an accident involving a truck and a Ugandan Taxi. We've since heard that 6 of the passengers died at the scene of the accident and 8 are in a Kampala hospital in a critical condition (most not expected to live).
We brought Doreen into Nsambya hospital, but due to the seriousness of her malnutrition we were referred to Mulago hospital who specialise in this condition. When I asked the doctor at Ndambya hospital how advanced her malnourishment was, she said Doreen had less than a week to live if not given immediate attention.
After finding Ward 3 at Mulago Hospital (no easy exercise as there are no signposts along the way), we waited for well over an hour before the doctors were able to see us. Following this initial assessment, we were asked to again wait in the designated area while she was admitted - about an hour later we spoke to the Director of Nursing and confirmed that she could stay for the night. Due to the seriousness of her condition they said they needed to transfer her to another unit within the hospital that specialists in advanced cases of malnutrition. She thought Doreen would probably require 4 months of hospitalisation.
We ended up leaving the hospital at about 2am and returned to the Jesus House at about 2.30am.
Another rewarding, yet long day.
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