Lore Declercq and NUV HOP made a difference! By Lore Declercq (KLASS 2008 - 2011)

Back in 2019, alumna Lore Declercq was given an opportunity to work with the Northern Uganda Village Health Outreach Project (NUV-HOP). In support of NUV-HOP, the Alice Smith School contributed ¤200 to help improve the local health care by providing medication and educating the local communities in and around Gulu. Recently, KLASSics reconnected with Lore to find out the development of the outreach programme and the impact they had made.

After having spent an entire year organising fundraisers together with my fellow NUV HOP participants, I boarded a plane to Entebbe, Uganda early August 2019. After an 8 hour flight and a 10 hour drive to Gulu, I finally arrived at my host family who had been waiting eagerly to welcome me into their home. Mama Susan hugged me just as tightly as my mum back home did saying goodbye at the airport. She lifted my 20kg suitcase onto her head and carried it inside. Although past 10pm, a delicious 5 dish meal was waiting for me and I had my first dinner with the other family members. I couldn’t have imagined a warmer welcome.

The next four weeks were filled with outreaches and health talks in small, remote villages around Gulu. Upon arrival by bus, the first patients were often waiting outside already. During the outreaches, patients received a free consultation with a local doctor and if necessary a lab test and the adequate medication. As a result of the organised efforts of not only the Belgian team but also the Ugandan team and the team from Manchester, we managed to help up to 1200 patients a day this year. It is the organisation and medication of these outreaches for which the bulk of the money raised was used.

What I found most shocking is that as the end of the outreach approaches, simply because the sun sets and there is not enough light to continue, the medication stock grew smaller and smaller. At a certain point, we have to decide who we give for example the remaining pain killers to and who gets left behind in order to make sure our resources are best put to use during these final hours. As the end draws nearer, we have often had to deny the basic care of pain reduction to children above the age of 12 for example, simply because we didn’t have enough supplies. It is very hard to predict how many people will show up at each outreach but we try our best to make sure the doctors see everyone who showed up and try to allocate the medication correctly. However, what really hit me is that every extra euro raised could have been that one extra pain killer for that child who is denied the pill because we have to give it to the younger kid next in line. With this in mind, I grew more passionate about the fundraising aspect of the project for next year. What is considered the least fun part turned into the part I was really committed to: raising absolutely as much money as possible so that we could give everyone the necessary medication next year, even at the end of the day. I managed to raise quite a bit more for 2020 but unfortunately, due to COVID-19, the project couldn’t go through. The money raised will be put to use in summer 2021.

Another aspect of the programme is the health talks. When no outreach was planned, we would go to small villages for interactive health related games and quizzes. Topics range from how to prevent, recognise and treat common diseases such as hepatitis B, malaria, peptic ulcers, to mental health and sexual education. The audience was often very enthusiastic. At the end of each health talk, there’s an opportunity to share ideas concerning other topics that we could focus on next year and which topics they feel they already have enough knowledge about and could be left out.

These four weeks have been an experience I will forever cherish. Personally, because of the bond made with my host family and the realisation that to eat the same food and sleep in the same bed as this country’s own population is an opportunity. I won’t likely to come across this again anytime soon. Professionally, because it is the first hands-on experience I’ve had since the day I started medschool. The memory of how appreciated I was by the patients and the feeling of reward after an outreach are what will get me through the rest of my journey. Although incredibly grateful for having been a part of NUV HOP, I definitely acknowledge the weaknesses of the project as well. Without denying that there are literally lives saved during an outreach, it is also true that we are merely treating symptoms without tackling its cause. A lot more efforts and funds need to go to prevention of these common diseases such as the provision of malaria nets to all citizens or the organisation of vaccination schemes for hepatitis B for example. As a small organisation, this possesses great challenge without the help of the Ugandan government but hopefully somebody up in the higher rankings is picking up the message we hope to be sending.