Boxes full of hope leave UCAM for Uganda accompanying the expedition of nurses Manuel

Pardo, Vice-Dean of the UCAM Podiatry Degree; Giulio Fenzi and Dr Asunción Quirante, UCAM

professors; Manuel Luque, President of the NGO Worldproject; Dafne Granado, a

physiotherapist; doctor Yassel Parra; and the emergency medical technicians Rubén Gabarrón

and Gustavo López, eight professional who will spend several weeks carrying out different

humanitarian tasks assisting the NGO Worldproject.

As an institution that promotes and collaborates with solidarity actions in different parts of the

world, UCAM has helped finance part of the construction works and the equipment of a new

clinic that will offer free healthcare to the inhabitants of the area of Kikaaya, in Uganda. Medical

equipment will be transported there, and the local team will be trained in different pathologies

and emergency procedures. This year training shall focus on sutures, immobilisation with

plaster casts, performing and interpreting ECG, ultrasound scans and childbirth assistance,

given the high birth rate and high perinatal mortality of mothers and children in this region.

During the international cooperation stay in Kikaaya last year, they equipped an ambulance and

an emergency clinic and trained the medical staff. And there they have already managed to set

up a stable team including a doctor, two nurses and a midwife. Besides, while the expedition

went there, they paid home visits to patients and transferred those patients who could not go to

a healthcare centre due to their health or age, to the clinic and hospitals.

Manuel Luque, President of the NGO Worldproject, was very happy as “the training that will be

offered to professionals in Uganda would be impossible without this expedition. The fact that

these UCAM professors are on the ground is invaluable because their effects have a much

more lasting impact, since after they leave, patients in the community will continue to benefit

from the knowledge that the local health professionals have acquired”.

Manuel Pardo stressed the importance of Universidad Católica facilitating and encouraging this

type of initiatives: “Being a professor at UCAM is much more than giving a lecture or publishing

a scientific paper. It includes promoting our knowledge and values outside the university by

helping others”. Regarding this expedition, he explained that “this action has two parts. On the

one hand, we will see the patients along with our colleagues there to tell them what our

approach to each case would be, so that there is an exchange of experiences. On the other

hand, we will be organising training workshops and some theoretical classes including clinical

simulation in blocks.

Asun Quirante, a 061 doctor and UCAM lecturer, was already in Uganda in 2021 and is

repeating this year because it's something she has always wanted to do. “The experience was

very good, both with the clinic staff and with the local population, and that is why I have decided

to return to continue this project”. The doctor stressed that they “will continue to provide material

for the clinic that is being set up there. We are very excited to see the progress they are

making, because when we arrived, we were starting from scratch in terms of material and

training, and we want them to tell us how the year has gone and what their needs are in terms of training

or equipment".

UCAM members who are part of the expedition will be working in Uganda for the next two weeks.