Across Human Borders: Mengo Hospital’s Lifeline for HIV/AIDS Patients
Akiki lay on the floor, next to her bed, in her neat and precise home. A simple place in a village outside Kampala, Uganda, proper. She is 86, and despite her palsied body, her eyes were bright and her smile wide.
Akiki, a Muslim, was diagnosed with HIV 13 years ago when she sought medical care at Mengo Hospital in Kampala for a fall. Her doctors believe she got the virus while daily caring for the five, of her twelve, children who ultimately died of AIDS.
Margaret, a counselor in the Home Care and Counseling Clinic at Mengo Hospital, an Anglican ministry founded over 125 years ago, knocked on the front door and was admitted by Akiki’s young caregiver and companion. I was along to help in any way I could.
We were there for Akiki’s regular, routine three-month home visit, to draw blood to test her HIV viral load and to deliver her ninety-day drug supply. Margaret introduced me in the tribal language and translated as Akiki welcomed me to her home.
We visited for a while and made sure that Akiki was well-cared for and healthy. We laughed because it had been so long since she had seen a Westerner in her village, an uncommon sight. These home visits began years ago when Akiki was no longer physically able to come into the hospital clinic.
The Home Care and Counseling Clinic, also known as the HIV/AIDS Clinic, is the only totally free clinic at Mengo Hospital. (Of course, Mengo provides free care in many other areas to those who cannot pay.) The HIV/AIDS Clinic is entirely funded by external sources, the principal one being the PEPFAR initiative begun by former President George W. Bush to address this global health crisis, especially in Africa.
The clinic’s PEPFAR grants fund most staff salaries and all HIV/AIDS drugs. Funding gaps are filled by international charities and Christian congregations like Christ Church Alexandria. But the clinic’s PEPFAR funding will be cut by forty percent in October 2024, and any funding from October 2025 on is uncertain.
Our visit to Akiki is testimony to the breadth and depth of medical services delivered to Ugandans by Mengo Hospital, which shares the top of Namirembe Hill alongside the Anglican Church of Uganda’s provincial cathedral, St. Paul’s. Mengo Hospital is unique; it does not discriminate on any basis whatsoever. It is common to see Muslims, Christians, and those who practice traditional religions as patients. All are welcome; no questions asked; no tests given. Mengo welcomes anyone just like Jesus did!
Christ Church Alexandria has supported Mengo Hospital for over forty years. At every turn in my visit in July staff greeted me as a “Friend of Mengo” and remembered our first parishioner’s visit forty years ago. Many sent back their thanks to Christ Church for things I had no idea we had supported– assisting in erecting the hospital chapel and building a modern dental clinic, among them.
Today, Christ Church Alexandria focuses its support to the Home Care and Counseling Clinic that welcomes all for HIV/AIDS diagnosis, treatment and counseling. The staff at this clinic are joyous, to say the least. They smile, they laugh. They augment severely limited resources with the unbounded Christian love that Jesus Christ gave us. As of June 2024, the clinic welcomes over 9,228 active patients.
My last day at Mengo was to be a part of Saturday Club. This is a once-a-month Saturday HIV/AIDS clinic focused on kids. The kids come because they are not in school, and their parents can bring them in. On this Saturday, the clinic saw 143 patients! Among them were some older boys, in their late teens, early twenties. I asked why these older men were at Saturday Club. It turns out they first came as children and had developed such trust in the attention and treatment they receive that they return into adulthood.
In my four days at Mengo Hospital, I saw the breadth of medical services they offer and witnessed the dedication of the staff in what we would call demanding conditions. They are remarkable people.
Robert H. (Bob) Carpenter, Jr.
Parishioner, Christ Church Alexandria and member of its Mengo Hospital Outreach Committee