News from Lacor Hospital - Fondazione Corti

Until now, the group has been nearly exclusively a
family association, led initially by my father Mario
and my sister-in-law Vanda. They purchase medicines,
tools, etc. and send them from the family’s textile company,
Manifattura Corti. One of my brothers, Eugenio
Corti, is now President of the Group, our nephew Mario
Vismara is Vice-President and Mario Botteon in Besana
has offered his precious accounting services. Others,
such as Dr. Morelli, my nephews, brothers and sisters,
our daughter Dominique, as well as friends and benefactors,
have given their time and/or money to the Hospital.
Basically, my nephew Mario Vismara is the soul
and keystone of the Group, even using the family company
as a hub for gathering and shipping everthing.
Since 2012, after the closing of Mario Vismara’s company,
the Hospital’s “Support Group” is hosted by the Manifattura
Corti, just as it was in the beginning. It is now directed by
another Mario Corti, one of Piero’s nephews. .
All these benefactors, along with all those who worked
at the Hospital, have represented a sort of personification
of Providence for Lacor.
Gradually, from ’75 onward, health services in Uganda
were offered almost exclusively by the missionary
hospitals. This pushed us to aggressively develop Lacor
Hospital services in order to answer as best as
possible to the increasing needs of the population.
These hospitals, now known as Catholic not for profit hospitals,
still carry out approximately 40% of the health care
activities in Uganda.
THE AFRICANISATION PROCESS
In ‘82 the Hospital was approved for the internship of
newly graduated Ugandan doctors from Mulago University
in Kampala. After various unsuccessful attempts,
we were convinced that we should intervene directly
in the process of professional training of Ugandan
physicians if we wanted to convince them to work with
us and to get to know each other…
In ‘84 the first Italian/Ugandan technical cooperation
project started; it was supervised directly by the
Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was aimed at
putting Lacor hospital in the condition to train each
year 4-6 Ugandan medical interns and of obtaining the
authorisation from the Ugandan Ministry of Health to
work in our missionary hospitals once they had completed
their internship.
Accepting and carrying out the Italian Cooperation
project for us was a dream come true, because it gave
us, in just a few years, resources and qualified personnel
that we did not expect to have before 2000.
LACOR HOSPITAL TODAY
Summarizing Lacor Hospital in just a few numbers today,
July ‘92, can help understand it a little more.
Number of beds: 450, including 90 in the almost completed
tuberculosis ward: the spread of the AIDS Virus (at
least 15% of the population in Gulu district has AIDS)
has multiplied the number of patients with active tuberculosis
by 10, making this ward a priority.
Doctors: 16 Ugandan, of which 3 specialists, 4 medical
officers and 9 interns.
Lucille and I are the only white doctors remaining.
Foreign specialists/experts are present on short missions
when we request from the Italian Ministry of
Foreign Affairs for the training of Ugandan doctors.
Hospital activity in the year 1/7/91 to 30/6/92: we admitted
11,595 patients (of which 4,869 children); and 104,240
patients were treated as out-patients; 1,200 major operations
and 2,636 minor operations were carried out,
there were726 deliveries, 9,188 antenatal examinations,
14,620 radiological and 3,120 ultrasound examinations;
248 endoscopies, 952 biopsies…
This is exclusively the Hospital activity, because the
three peripheral health centres of Opit, Amuru and
Pabo were raided and have not been active since ’86.
By comparison the activities of the Hospital alone in the
year 2011/12, illustrated in this year’s first newsletter show
that the total number of doctors and interns has doubled,
the number of patients admitted and treated at the out patient
department has doubled (this number does not include
the patients treated in the now active peripheral health
centres, which represent 30% of all Lacor patients), the
numbers of major operations have increased by four, the
deliveries by five, the number of ultrasound examinations
by almost ten times.
Since January 1991, Lacor Hospital is engaged with the
government health personnel in a vast program of primary
health care in the entire Gulu district.
When peace prevailed in nearly all of Uganda from the
early ‘90s (with the exception of the north), the Ugandan
Government, strongly supported by international aid, tried
to reconstruct the health sector, which however is still very
poor especially in the rural areas. Since the second half of
the ‘90s, the government invited the former mission hospitals
to share the national health strategy and in turn subsidizes
them. In spite of the inevitable difficulties, the public
– private partnership continues: the subsidy, or Government
of Uganda delegated funds, covered 8% of Lacor’s
operating costs last year. In 2003, the government founded
the country’s third faculty of medicine (the only one in the
north), of which Lacor as a university teaching site.
It must be pointed out that all the “common” patients who
are admitted (95% of the total) pay a 4 to 6 dollar fee,
everything included. Food is provided and prepared by
the relatives. For children under 6 any kind of treat-
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