His child’s tragic death inspired him to improve healthcare 

Charles Lugemwa, is a software engineer at Uganda Revenue Authority.  His life and personality have been shaped by the challenges he has faced. Life has taught him to use his talents and influence for the good of everyone around him. Lugemwa is one of the millions of Ugandan children orphaned by the Idi Amin regime. His father was abducted by the regime’s operatives in 1973 and was never heard from again. At the time, Lugemwa was only two years old.  His mother Francesca Ssekwe, stepped up and took over. But it was too big a responsibility for her that the family often had to make do without the basic things most people take for granted. 

Although his mother was illiterate, she believed her children’s future would only be bettered through education.  “I remember her encouraging us to take our education seriously so as not to struggle in the future like she was struggling. But sometimes things became too tough to handle even for her and she had to seek help from the extended family,” Lugemwa recounts.

Making the right moves
Lugemwa remembers his admission to St Henry’s College, Kitovu, as one of the happiest moments of his life.  But he was even happier when in 1993 he made it to Makerere University for  a degree in software engineering. 
“I was assigned to Northcote Hall of residence where I shared a room with Victor Lukandwa Luboga who was also doing software engineering. Our friendship endured even after graduation when we took separate paths.  

Lukandwa Joined University of St Thomas in Minnesota (USA), while I stayed around,” Lugemwa shares. Lukandwa continued looking out for  his friend and encouraged him to apply to the University for a Master’s academic arogramme in software engineering.
“He would send me emails and tell me about St. Thomas and how that programme would be good for me. I did not have the money at that point and I did not even dream of moving to the US. I was preoccupied with building a life in Uganda and how I could assist my mother and the family,” he explains.

As is a common practice in Ugandan families, Lugemwa took over the financial responsibility for his family after his graduation. But to make matters worse, just when he was giving the idea of a master’s programme serious consideration, tragedy hit the family and he lost two of his siblings and a brother-in-law, leaving behind orphans who needed support. “Every day, I thought about those children and did not want them to go through the lack and deprivation I had experienced as a child. I realised the best thing I could do for them was trying out my luck in the US because at this time, the economy was booming and the possibilities of starting a career while I studied, were many,” Lugemwa recounts. His decision was validated when weeks after enrolling into the software engineering class, companies visited the university and offered students jobs with a perk of tuition re-imbursement, which would actually cater for the student education. 

 
A life-changing meeting 
One morning, while he left his apartment to attend an African Students’ Association meeting, he met an old priest, who said he was heading to the same event.  “He greeted me and asked me if I was going to the African Students’ Association meeting and I said ‘yes’. He introduced himself as Father Dennis Dease, who was the president of the university. I was humbled,” he recollects.
 
While at university, his eyes were opened to all the great contributions some of his peers were makiing to society. He started looking for a wayto use his knowledge for the benefit of others.  After graduation, he decided to return home and continue to take care of his family as he explored how to make a difference in his community. 

“I always felt called to do something different. My employer in the US offered me a well-paying opportunity but I turned it down because, for me at that time, work was not entirely about money anymore,” Lugemwa says.  Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) took him back and Makerere University offered him a teaching stint in the department of computer science to teach software engineering to master’s students. 
But he still hungered to make a difference, especially for ordinary Ugandans by creating value for them. The opportunity to do so presented itself in a rather tragic manner. 

Tragic mistake
One day, while in Kampala, his daughter developed a high temperature.
“It was in the evening. It had rained heavily causing traffic jam to swell.  As we drove back home, around Bombo Road, we saw a clinic and took our daughter there. The name of the clinic was similar to one we knew in the US. My wife moved with the baby to a doctor who checked her and gave a prescription chit,” he narrates.

The wife was asked to follow the nurse into a treatment room.  In the room, she found a nurse with a syringe and drugs. Lugemwa’s wife, a veterinary doctor, asked the nurse what medication she was going to give the baby. 
The nurse having misunderstood the question as questioning her capability, dismissively said she knew what she was doing.
 
“When she administered the medicine to the baby, the baby died. We later discovered that she had injected the baby with Valium, a tranquillising muscle-relaxant drug which was meant for an old man who was having convulsions in another room. We lost our baby and it was terrible,” he recounts that painful day. 
After the burial, many people encouraged him to report the matter to police and sue the clinic. In the process of trying to accept reality, a revelation came to him and as he pondered the matter, he asked himself what they would gain by suing.

He questioned, “Do we get our baby back? No. The owner of the clinic could be arrested. They could be closed but what happens to other clinics doing something similar? What happens to other people that have experienced this kind of injustice? So, it took a while. We chose to forgive them and instead focus on doing something that would change the way things were done,” he says.
The couple started doing research and discovered that a shockingly sizable number of clinics employ people who are not trained because they are cheap; so long as someone knows how to administer an injection and how to read, they can learn on the job. 

“We also discovered that expired drugs are administered in some slum clinics and all sorts of abuse happens in those facilities. They charge patients for diagnosis but they do not actually diagnose them because they do not have the equipment. People were treated based on guesswork. If you went and told the health worker that you thought you were suffering from malaria, you would be given treatment for malaria. If you improved, you knew that it was malaria. If you did not, then they tried typhoid drugs and so on, until you finally responded to treatment or did not,” he says.

While still a student at St. Thomas, Lugemwa had built a relationship with the university president. “My class performance had caught Father Dease’s attention who decided to sponsor my master’s education.
When I narrated my ordeal to him, the priest expressed interest in joining our efforts to build well-equipped health centres with qualified personnel,” he says. Lugemwa found land owned by a Catholic parish and secured government approvals. 

Father Dease raised money; more than $500,000 (Shs1.8b) to date  and received gifts in kind, including medical equipment from Matter, a Minnesota a-based nonprofit  organisation. Ground was broken in 2010. Three buildings have opened since 2013 and construction will soon conclude on a three-story fourth building, with the top storey housing apartments for University of Minnesota surgical residents. The staff has grown to 40 under the leadership of Lugemwa,  the hospital board chair and construction supervisor. 

From being a friend and sympathiser, the priest offered to partner with Lugemwa to set up Ruth Gaylord Hospital which is run under ‘Friends of East Africa Foundation’, a non-profit organisation through which they mobilise funds. 
The foundation provides funds to buy equipment, as well as support the Hope Medical Clinics in Uganda, which offer quality medical attention at a subsided rate. The agony of their daughter and the friendships Lugemwa cultivated, gave birth to medical centres. In return, they got another daughter. One morning the couple woke up to cries of a baby who had been dumped and abandoned in a hospital bed whom they adopted and is now under their care.

Quick bio
About Lugemwa
Lugemwa was born to Henry and Francesca Ssekwe and raised in Suunga, in Kalisizo, Kyotera District. He started school in Lwankoni then went to Ssaka Primary School and St Gerald Primary School from where he joined St Henry’s College, Kitovu for Ordinary and Advanced Level education. He then joined Makerere University where he pursued an undergraduate degree; a Bachelors of statistics. After that, he joined Uganda Revenue Authority (URA)  in 1997 and later moved to the University of St. Thomas for his master’s degree. 

 What others say
James Kizza- supervisor at URA
“Lugemwa is quite thoughtful in how he approaches his projects. He has an analytical mind and he gives whatever he sets out to do his whole and does not quit until he has successfully seen it through.  It is no wonder that he has overcome a number of obstacles to put up the hospital.”