“It is where she was working as a maid for Indians that is where she got the problem. When you are cooking their food you have to put a lot of chillies in it,” explained a mother of how she believes her teenage daughter got infected with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). This was April 2017, during an interview with CPAR Uganda.
According to her it is because shortly after her daughter returned home from town, “one evening she vomited a lot of blood at around 5:00 p.m.” On seeing his granddaughter vomit blood, he apparently cried out in resignation: “she is finished, she is going to die.”
The mother testified she remained strong in her faith praying: “In the name of Jesus, she is not going to die.” They went to the “main government hospital”, where, according to the mother, a medical doctor told them that there was no cure, but for surgery to remove a “hernia in the heart.”
Unable to afford heart surgery they returned home, but someone advised the mother to get Shs. 30,000/= and to take the daughter to see a visiting doctor. “He works in a referral hospital in town, but periodically run clinics in rural areas…”
This is an extract from an article authored by our Managing Director, Ms. Norah Owaraga, that she worked with a media team and drama students to dramatize in order to creatively disseminate empirical research findings
Here is the link to our TB Video, which continues to be been very well received and remains relevant even today.
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Ms. Owaraga is a cultural anthropologist and she was the sole Social Scientist and the lead qualitative investigator in a consortium code named: “Tuberculosis: Working to Empower the Nations’ Diagnostic Efforts (TWENDE).” The article and the video are among the products that CPAR Uganda delivered as part of the TWENDE project.
The TWENDE project was funded under the EDCTP2 programme by the European Union. Whereas, the EDCTP Association and the European Union provided funding for the TWENDE Project, the views herein expressed are not necessarily those of the EDCTP Association or those of the European Union.
CPAR Uganda Ltd 