Where the burden is heavy: Nyapea Hospital, Zombo District, Uganda.
Adequate healthcare is needed everywhere. IMO’s founder and CEO Todd M. Price, MD, has confirmed that throughout his 30-year career in cities like Houston and Los Angeles. But in 1993, he and his wife founded IMO to direct their efforts where even the best doctors are burdened by tropical diseases and a lack of resources to fight them.
Nyapea Hospital in northwest Uganda epitomizes the burden of inadequate healthcare in a place that needs it the most. Unpaved roads, under-resourced physicians, limited laboratory services. This hospital is the only level IV health center in Zombo District. This means that a population of 250,000 throughout nearly 400 square miles in this district and parts of neighboring DRC depend on this hospital where funding is low and stockroom shelves are often empty.
A 35-year-old man was working his fields one day when he suddenly became short of breath. The nearest physician diagnosed a pulmonary infection and prescribed the appropriate antibiotics. However, the infection outlasted the available doses, and this man was forced to check into Nyapea Hospital, where his muscles have wasted despite intensive care.
The same patient is examined by Dr. Watumbe Kennedy, one of a handful of staff physicians at Nyapea Hospital. Educated in Kampala, Dr. Kennedy has returned to the very hospital in which he was born to advance health in his home community.
Dr. Price examines a young girl who fractured her fibula when a motorcycle clipped her on the edge of the road outside her home. Though the nurses prevented infection, the lack of adequate operation facilities means that her leg will likely heal irregularly.
Dr. Kennedy checks on a 32-year-old patient with HIV and resultant muscle wasting and respiratory distress. His health depends on unstocked antibiotics that IMO and Nyapea Hospital have worked together to obtain.
Photos by Austin M. Price. Video by M. Brandon Smith.
