The Bwama Island Health Centre on Lake Bunyonyi makes free health care available to all – giving relief from curable ailments and helping to fight some of the developing world’s biggest killers.The clinic has made a huge impact on the local community and is the primary care provider in the Lake area.
82,354
people screened for HIV/AIDS
51,906
outpatients treated in the clinic
19,866
patients treated in outreach
1,234
attended family planning sessions
* figures from year ending 31 July 2018
Working in Partnership
The Bwama Health Centre is a fine example of international and local co-operation.
The land was donated by the Kigezi Diocese and Edirisa UK has constructed and maintains most of the facility, while the Ugandan Department of Health provides nursing staff, some medicines and regularly visits and supervises.
Edirisa UK provides ongoing support across a variety of areas - through the donation of equipment, funding outreach programmes, buying emergency medicines, running surgical camps, purchasing mother and baby kits, offering mobile kitchens and much more.
We have a wonderful relationship with The Tropical Medicine Department at the Ljubljana University, Slovenia, who provide medics and doctors to work at the facility on a regular basis. They bring equipment and medicines and provide training and outreach clinics.
Together we are stronger.
Daily we examined on average forty to fifty patients during our regular hours, with emergency cases and deliveries at any times in the day or night.
During our time at the island we have had quite a lot of baby deliveries now that the maternity ward is operational. However many women still chose to give birth at home, which is partly the reason for a high perinatal children mortality rate. The clinic is offering ante natal visits and maternity aftercare, plus family planning, which is making a big difference. All these services are offered free of charge.
The outpatients clinic, built by Edirisa UK and equipped by us, has three examination rooms; a small laboratory with equipment for basic tests; pharmacy; storage room; room for dental services and a room for measuring vital signs of the patients. Medicines are provided by the government and part by the funds gathered in Slovenia. Power for the clinic is from solar panels which is slowly being increased. There is now enough power for the use of our dental chair, which we brought with us from Slovenia."
Visiting Slovenian Medic
Surgeries
We are proud to support Dr Robert Mugarura, a neurosurgeon who trained in Uganda and the USA and has since returned to his hometown in Kabale to help the local community.
In September 2016 Dr Mugarura operated on 24 children with congenital deformities, completely free of charge, at the Kabale hospital - where the facilities and nursing staff were provided for free. Inspired by his generosity and his mission to help his community, we wanted to get involved.
We started in August 2017 by providing Dr Mugarura with a large quantity of medical equipment to help him in his surgeries. We also invited him to the Bwama Island Heath Centre where he runs surgical camps twice a year. We support these medical camps, and those he runs at the Kisoro Hospital, by funding accommodation, food and surgical supplies. The surgical camps are primarily for people suffering from congenital deformities, helping to improve the quality of their life immeasurably.
Dr Mugarura and his team provide their services completely free of charge.
A Short History
In 2011 Edirisa UK partnered with the Department of Health in Kabale District, the Kigezi Diocese and the Tropical Medicine Department at Ljubljana University, Slovenia, to build and staff a new medical facility at Lake Bunyonyi. Edirisa UK finished construction of the Bwama Health Centre in 2012 and shortly afterwards the first patients were welcomed.
Final year and newly qualified medical students from Ljubljana University have worked at the health centre on three-month rotations since it was opened, running the outpatients department, training local doctors and delivering outreach clinics.
These outreach clinics started in 2013 at schools and villages in the Kabale district. Not only do the doctors examine patients but they also teach how to prevent diseases by practising good hygiene, dental health, nutrition and HIV prevention. Also in 2013, health centre staff started mobile kitchens, funded by Edirisa UK, to teach villagers how to make nutritional meals with local produce and to emphasise the importance of good nutrition. These continue to this day.
Construction continued and the maternity and overnight wards were opened in 2016. Edirisa UK started providing Mother and Baby gifts to mothers giving birth at Bwama. Then in 2017 Edirisa UK opened staff housing blocks. Thanks go to Masters student at the University of Ljubljana, Danaja Vastic, for designing the complex and supervising the start of the building programme.
By 2018 the health centre had become a valuable resource for the people living around Lake Bunyonyi and local tourist lodge, Byoona Amagara, donated a motor boat ambulance to transfer patients to the main hospital in Kabale. Also at this time the first 'surgical camp' was held by Doctor Robert Mugarura, operating on children and adults free of charge.
Between 2019 and 2020 the clinic recieved a motorbike to help with outreach immunisations in the villages from the Gavi Foundation, fifty fruit trees for the nutrition gardens from the Rotary Club of Kabale and a placenta pit and additional water harvesting tank for the maternity ward from USAID RHITES. During this time clinics were held with adolescents to teach them about Hepatitis B, HPV vaccinations, teenage pregnancy and prevention of Covid-19.
In 2021 UNICEF Uganda and the Ugandan Ministry of Health launched the Covid-19 vaccination programme for the lake area from Bwama Health Centre. Then in 2022 Edirisa UK renovated all the buildings, donated additional solar equipment and the govenment supplied a large fridge to store vaccines and solar panels to run it. 2023 also saw the return of the Slovenian doctors from Ljubljana University after a three year break due to Covid-19. Then in 2023 the health centre received a new,modern water ambulance from the Ministry of Health and GAVI.
Edirisa UK continues to support Bwama Health Centre with equipment, medicines and other resources, including seeds to the nutrition garden, which feeds the clinic staff and overnight patients and their families and is used in the outreach mobile kitchens project. Each group of Slovenian doctors bring much needed equipment and funds to purchase medicines and other necessities. They also run outreach clinics in the surrounding villages.
Clinic Services
Outpatient Clinic
TB screening & management
Minor surgery
Dental care
Eye care
HIV screening & counselling
ART treatment
Medicine dispensing
Wound treatment
STD screening
Medical surgical camps
Diagnostics
Nutrition assessment
Laboratory
Malaria testing
HIV testing
TB testing
HCG testing
H-Pylori testing
BAT testing
Widal testing
Urinalysis testing
Stool analysis
HB testing
Blood group testing
Syphilis testing
STDS screening
Hepatitis testing
Maternity
Antenatal clinics
Family planning
Deliveries
Postnatal clinics
Immunisations
Blood pressure
Body weight analysis
Mosquito net distribution
IPT 1,2,3,4
Administration of FEFO
EMTCT services
Comp. feeding package
New baby kit
Community Clinics
Home visits
HIV screening
Nutrition education
Nutrition assessment
TB screening
TB contact tracing
ART patient follow up
Health education talks
School nutrition
School hygiene
Sanitation and hygiene
Nutrition gardens
Training of the VHTS
Cooking demonstrations
