by Sr. Margaret Anne Meyer, MMM                              USA                         o4.07.2026

We were happy to have another lay Doctor, Paddy O’Neil, and his wife and two children come to replace Dr. Judith Galvin who did marvelous work during her two-year tour. Doctor O’Neil did great research on each patient with AIDS. All this helped us to learn much more about the disease and how it is presented. At that time, we had no ante retroviral medicines.

He also made a discovery in treating chloroquine resistant malaria. We had thought that the convulsions were due to cerebral malaria. He passed by a patient in the maternity ward who was convulsing and took her blood sugar, He had brought a small device from England, and it gave the answer very quickly. Her blood sugar was extremely low. The convulsions were from hypoglycemia. Intravenous quinine caused an increase in insulin production which, in turn caused a lowering of the blood sugar. We were then able to prevent this. We read about this later in a medical journal.

Another tragedy was the occurrence of many premature deliveries. The mother would suffer high fever from malaria and suffer a miscarriage. Sometimes babies were born at term with palpable spleens, and a blood slide was taken which was positive for malaria.  Other babies from 3-4 months old would develop severe pneumonia and have a positive blood slide for malaria. We had never seen that before and were comforted to confirm our findings by reading about it in the medical journals three months later. God was with us as we pioneered in learning about HIV/AIDS as well as chloroquine-resistant malaria.

New Sisters came to the Community. Sr. Mary Donato returned to the USA and Sr. Sheila Devane replaced her as midwifery tutor. Sister Doctor Rosalinda Gonzales was a welcome addition to our medical Staff as were Sisters Helen Mc Kenna, Benedicta Nannyondo, Helen Ahern, and Marcellina McCarthy.  We had a very fun-loving Community and many of the young temporary professed were sent to us.  We enjoyed the young Sisters and their great enthusiasm for life and learning the language.

We were sad to lose Sr. Christina Hanley who broke her hip while in Belgium trying to get to her plane. Her motherly care was not replaced although we each tried to do something to help the smooth running of the house. I looked after the vegetable garden. I had never watched green string beans growing and it was a delight to have them prepared for supper.

We found that all these changes added to our love and support of one another as we all joined hands to bring Christ’s Healing Love to the people.