by Sr. Margaret Anne Meyer MMM                             USA            16.04.2025     

Life was surprisingly good in Uganda at that time.  Matoke cost 2 shillings and 50 cents, the basis of hospital food for a day. The patients also got afternoon tea and a big slice of bread.  The dollar was worth 7 shillings.  We never seemed to have enough money, and our drug bill went over 60 thousand shillings and still the Asian Dealers in Bombay Traders wanted to encourage us to buy more medicines.  I was ashamed to go into their store, but they gave me a bottle of perfume when going on home leave in 1970.  They said we would eventually pay our bill someday and I was happy to hear that the Congregation paid the bill while I was on leave.  The money we made in the hospital had been used to pay the lay Doctors and wives’ airfares to Canada.

Sr. Evangelist O’Connor came sometime later, and she trained me in as an MMM doctor.  She and Sr. Ita Barry were tremendous nurses and most helpful to me in every way.  I remember operating on a woman who had been in labor a long time.  I lost my nerve and told Sr. Ita that the woman was going to die.  She said, “She is not” and that brought back some courage and from then on all went well.  I will be forever grateful to our Sister nurses for their help in getting me started.

One of the caesarean sections, I remember, was, a woman whose baby’s arm prolapsed.  The mother was incredibly happy to have a live child despite the fact the arm was paralyzed.  With exercises, the arm soon recovered and when the mother brought back the child, to my delight, she had named the baby Julius Meyer Kalubegga.

Another was when a mother had a concealed accidental hemorrhage and received four units of blood.  The child was dead, but we thanked God the mother was spared.  It was not until the mid-1980’s when Sr. Goretti was doing her apostolic work in Makiungu Hospital, Tanzania, did I find out that this woman was the mother of our Sr. Goretti Nalumaga.  I was happy for her.

At times we did not have experienced surgeons, and I remember one morning trying to deliver a breech miscarriage at 24 weeks.  The woman was bleeding very much.  The baby’s head was stuck in the cervix, and I tried to repair the damage done but to no avail.  Thank God we had a phone which worked, and Dr. Lane came from Villa Maria Hospital to help me.  He did a hysterectomy in which the ovaries were also removed.  I felt sorry for the woman, but her life was spared.  The cervix was sent for pathology, and it came back with result of Carcinoma plus four.  The woman was only 28 years of age but when all was explained to her husband, he thanked God her life was spared.  Dr. Lane came to work for us many times for one or two years and then returned to England.  We appreciated all he did for us.