Meet the team at CoRSU hospital in Uganda

Comprehensive Rehabilitation Services of Uganda (CoRSU) is a specialist hospital established with CBM’s support in 2006. It provides affordable and quality healthcare services for people with disabilities in Uganda. 80% of its patients are children.

In this blog, we introduce you to some of the team who deliver CoRSU’s life-changing work.

Dr Moses Fisha, Head of Orthopaedics

Dr Moses Fisha treats children with conditions like osteomyelitis (infection of the bone), club foot and contracted bones.

“These children, you’re giving them lots of hope, and reassurance. And they grow up to be something, make a life out of their own for themselves.”

“CoRSU is located in the heart of Uganda, by the shores of Lake Victoria. We get patients as far as South Sudan, the Congo, Rwanda, and Kenya…The majority of them are from poor backgrounds.”

Dr Fisha explains that the hospital’s outreach work is vital so that families of children with conditions like bow legs or club foot realise that treatment is possible. “Most of the times it’s lack of knowledge that most of these problems can actually be managed…[Community outreach workers] have a very big role, because every time they go out into the communities, they educate, the first thing is to sensitize and educate people about the common conditions.”

Christine Tusiime, Head of Rehabilitation

Christine Tusiime is the Head of Rehabilitation at CoRSU. She tells us: “We have the therapy team, where we have the occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and speech and language therapists. Then we have the prosthetics and orthotics workshop, where we make the different assistive devices that support us to do the rehabilitation for patients. We also have the nutrition team, and the clinical community psychologists that offer play therapy and counselling for the patient. So that’s the entire department.

As the head of the department, I am responsible for mentoring and supervising these different teams, but primarily, I also do therapy as a physiotherapist.”

“I want to appreciate CBM and all the donors who support CBM. They’ve really, really invested in CoRSU as an institution, they’ve been there with us. And they’ve walked the journey with us.”

Jude Wadwire, Social Worker

Jude Wadwire is a Social Worker at CoRSU. In this video, he speaks to CBM CEO Kirsty Smith about the way his team tackles discrimination and works towards disability inclusion.

He says: “In their host communities there is a tendency of discriminating, so they feel that their sense of belonging is taken away. So our department has social workers, we make sure that we get the mother, and the patient and, where possible, we are actually teaching the host communities how to reintegrate them into the communities, so that they are looked at not as ‘lame’, as they are called, but as normal children like others.”

“We thank God for CBM because we are funded to go out into communities, reach out to them, talk to them, encourage them to come, and find those that need to be treated.”

Flora Namwanje, Nurse

“My role includes caring for patients in the high dependence unit, nursing malnourished patients, providing pre and post-operative care to patients with cleft lip and palate and other conditions.” Says Flora Namwanje, Nurse at CoRSU.

“I ensure we are maintaining high clinical standards as far as health is considered, and that we are treating patients with respect and dignity and giving attention to individual needs.”

“The best part of my job? When a patient comes to me to say thank you, and goes back home with a smile when they are well.”

At CoRSU, no-one is turned away. Treatment is heavily subsidised when needed, and is always completely free for children aged 0 – 5 years. Thanks to our supporters, since 2006 CBM UK has continually helped to fund this dedicated team, who have treated over 80,000 patients and changed the lives of over 50,000 children.

Read more about our life-changing work with CoRSU.