In order to tell you about the time when we felt out of place, as is the WordPress Daily Prompt for today, first, we share a gratitude story for context. Here goes:

Surgeons, members of the Association of Surgeons of Uganda (ASOU), thank you for providing life-saving medical services for the benefit of the people of West Nile, in particular, and for all of us, Ugandans, in general.

We watched a video of your week-long intervention in West Nile, posted on X (@ASOU_official), and we are moved.

A 30 years old resident of Maracha testified she had been afflicted with Goiter for 10 years.

A 40 years old teacher from Yumbe testified she had been afflicted with Goiter for 15 years.

Senior woman Lucy, while expressing her gratitude to ASOU, made a spirited plea for longer-term and sustainable solutions to address the plight of the people of Maracha.

“Prevention is better than curing,” she insisted.

We deduced that Lucy’s focus is on preventable diseases, such as Goiter, which is a nutrition related disease – “iodine deficiency, insufficient dietary iodine leads to the thyroid gland enlarging.”

“We work so hard with no gain. We work in vain. Overworking without eating proper food,” pointed out Lucy, while she spoke about why there are many patients needing medical interventions in Maracha.

Lucy’s assertion is supported by findings of the most recent Uganda National Population and Household Census, conducted by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) in 2024 – that only 24% of households in Maracha are food secure.

Lucy speaks out and up on behalf of the people of Maracha.

The majority of households in Maracha, 76% of them, experience “frequent and prolonged periods of insufficient food intake due to lack of money and other resources, forcing members of those households to skip meals or go an entire day without a meal.”

This status quo is prevalent throughout West Nile – on average, 28.6% of households in West Nile are food secure.

Read more in “State of food security in West Nile.”

From the video we also deduced and re-confirmed other drivers of ill-health among the population of West Nile, among others, as:

Public health center coverage is insufficient – in Marach, for example, there is only one health center four, it was mentioned in the video. One health center four serving a population of 234,712 people is truly unacceptable.

Medical personnel are insufficient in quantity and quality – doctors, specialists, nurses, etc., are too few in number and in most of the region there aren’t medical specialists.

Combined with widespread food insecurity and insufficient provision of healthcare services, it is valid to surmise that people in West Nile are enduring prolonged affliction with and dying from preventable and or curable conditions.

The least we, at CPAR Uganda, can do is to amplify Lucy’s cry to duty bearers to prioritize provision of public healthcare services for the people of West Nile and to deliver.

Yes, this story is an example of us truly understanding and appreciating the mission of our organisation, which is “stimulate development, dissemination and widespread application of technologies suitable for Uganda.”

For a while, especially our staff who came after our mission was decided on in 2008, did not fully understand our mission. This caused many a times when on our behalf they found themselves in places and situations of being out of place and feeling it.

For example, responding to funding calls, which our organisation should have not really responded to. This was mostly driven from bowing to pressure of “dancing to the song of the piper,” so to speak; and also to the need in our operation area.

You see, in the past, CPAR Uganda (the country program of Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief (CPAR) – 1992 to 2008) primarily did relief work, when in 2008, we localized into an independent Ugandan organisation, while retaining the name CPAR Uganda.

The times we have felt out of place is when we find ourselves among those who have not internalized our change of focus from relief aid workers, to development workers and with a focus on knowledge generation and distribution.

As in, case in point, we are invited into spaces and we realize, for example, that our hosts are pushing a ‘victim narrative’ the basis on which to request support; while ours is to push an empowering narrative the basis on which to request support.

ASOU team in West Nile

Thank you for dropping by and we hope you will join us in celebrating members of ASOU for bringing much needed medical services to the disadvantaged communities of West Nile. They relived thousands of indigents from ill-health and restored dignity.

Please share this to your wider network and also drop a “yes” in comments to let us know you agree with us thanking our hero surgeons. THANK YOU!