Bwindi Community Hospital was founded in 2003 by Scott and Carol Kellermann. It began as an outreach clinic under a tree, and has grown into a 112-bed hospital providing health care and health education services to a population of over 100,000 people in Uganda. The hospital began with a special mission to help the Batwa pygmies who were displaced from the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest after it was made a National Park in 1991. Since leaving the forest many Batwa have lived in extreme poverty and are affected by the health issues that poverty brings.
While the hospital was started particularly to provide health care to the Twa, it quickly found itself treating all people living in the area. The hospital serves the population in 3 sub-counties of Kayonza, Mpungu and Kanyantorogo in Kanungu District.
There are few other decent health services in this extremely remote area and people sometimes walk for more than a day to get to the hospital. Its status was upgraded from health centre to hospital in 2008 after a new operating theater was built.
The Kellermanns
Batwa pygmies inhabited the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest for thousands of years, but became conservation refugees largely as a result of efforts to protect endangered mountain gorillas. Some people had to walk 20 kilometres to get to the nearest health centre to receive treatment for their health problems. When Scott and Carol Kellermann began their work in Bwindi in 2001, they came as missionaries to help the Batwa pygmies. Out of the population of 100,000 people in the Bwindi area, around 800 are Batwa.
Hospital Statistics
Monthly averages;
Out Patient Department attendance 3,000
Deliveries 150
Surgery (major operations) 60
Admissions on adult and children's ward 300
HIV testing 845
eQuality subscription 30,000
100% of the babies’ borne of HIV positive mothers that enrolled in the hospital's prevention from mother to Child Treatment (PMTCT) before delivery were discharged HIV free. 97% of patients with TB completed their treatment successfully.
Staff Demographics
Bwindi Community Hospital is a Church of Uganda (Anglican) Hospital under the Diocese of Kinkiizi. It is staffed by a team of 150. These include: doctors, nurses, midwives, other health workers and support staff. 70% of the employees are from within the hospital's catchment area and 30% are from other parts of Uganda.
The Community
Bwindi Community Hospital cares for more than 100,000 people living in the South Western corner of Uganda. The hospital is located twelve hours drive, on poor roads, from Kampala, the capital, two kilometres from the Eastern border of the Congo, and one kilometre from Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Most of the people here are farmers or herders who live without running water and electricity, many walk for hours daily to collect water and firewood, and most families survive on less than $1 a day.
Malaria has always been the biggest killer in the Bwindi area, and is easily preventable simply by sleeping under a mosquito net. Many people still suffer from diarrhea because they don't know enough about how to access clean water, and families go hungry because they don't have the knowledge and skills to be able to grow and prepare a balanced diet. Many children with malnutrition and adults with tuberculosis go undiagnosed in the community because of a lack of screening.
The Twa
The life expectancy is 28 for the Twa versus 53 for the average Ugandan. The Batwa are poorer, and have more limited access to health care. In the past Batwa women would be beaten while in labour by health workers to stop them from crying, or even denied health care altogether when they tried to take their sick children to health facilities.
Only one out of every fourteen Batwa women is on family planning compared with one out of four of their Bakiga neighbours. Batwa children are more likely to die, more likely to be malnourished, are less likely to go to school, and are less likely to sleep under a mosquito net than the rest of society.
Byumba Health Centre II opened in June 2009 on the edge of a Batwa settlement. It employs three Batwa and three Bakiga workers. The nursing team looks after more than 500 patients a month. The Byumba team teaches in local schools and villages, and makes a special effort to reach out to the Batwa pygmies with family planning, HIV testing, pregnancy care, immunization, and education about clean water and prevention of malaria.