Dr Denis Omiat

During a 2005 visit I travelled for the first time to North Eastern Uganda and met a rural community there in the district of Soroti. Sponsored by a church community in London, they were undertaking the boring, digging, building and maintenance of a clean water well.

While in the village of Serere, I was introduced to Dr Denis Omiat at the only medical clinic around, and for a couple of days I observed him as he worked. I was very impressed not only by his medical skills and creative, lateral approach to problems, but also by his respectful attitude in communication with his patients.

One morning, while visiting the ward, we paused by the bed of a middle aged man who at time of admission was dying from cerebral malaria. Dr Denis had administered the recommended dose of treatment but saw no improvement in the man's condition. Fearing that he would die he took a decision to infuse a combination of anti-malarial drugs into the patient's blood stream.

Twenty four hours later, the doctor noted a marked improvement and by the time I was introduced to the patient, he was almost ready for discharge. Denis told me he was often in situations where, confronted with critically ill patients, he had to make clinical decisions that did not always conform to written protocols.

Perhaps this is not so unusual in any medical setting, but in a rural clinic in Uganda it seemed a terrific responsibility for the lone practitioner to take – the more so when Denis explained that although known as ‘Doctor’, he in fact was a Clinical Officer – roughly equivalent to a para-medic.

The only son of a single parent, Denis was one of several siblings. His mother is a primary school teacher, a dignified, gentle woman of quiet bearing aged sixty four. She regarded learning as of utmost importance for all her children and I felt admiration for her in somehow putting each of them through secondary and tertiary education.

This image is © Claudia Giampietri from the very interesting blog cgiampietri.wordpress.com

External circumstances interrupted Denis' schooling for one year when he was ten or eleven. Several miles from his home village, the region has been scarred for many years by insurgency, the roots of which are complex and puzzling for a Westerner to understand.

I found a description in an article by Ben Jones from The Guardian, excerpts of which follow.

"If you ask anyone in the Teso region when things got bad they would say that it was "the time of the Karamojong". In 1986 warriors from Karamoja started looting cattle from the Teso region. The raiding began in the north-east spreading gradually south and west towards Soroti, Katine and Kumi. It destroyed what remained of the region's economy.

The raiding involved the burning of huts, the theft of ploughs and hoes, and the looting of stores of grain and flour. Once prosperous homes with more than 100 cows were reduced to ash. Those who could fled to the towns. But most remained in the villages where they had to contend with repeated raids and attacks."

Denis recounted how as a young child, the Karamojong had raided his village repeatedly and he would run into the bush and hide out for days and weeks at a time, afraid to return home until he was sure the raiders had moved on. In total, he spent a year evading the Karamojong,
sometimes running separate from his mother and siblings and uncertain until he found them what their fate had been. On one occasion, coming back to the village from the bush, he found the huts had been burned to the ground and an uncle shot dead.

In Serere, where I first met Denis, he took me to a displaced person's camp on the edge of the town where dire health conditions resulted in malaria, dysentery, HIV/AIDS – all diseases he was dealing with daily in the clinic. He visited the camp regularly, encouraging the impoverished and hungry people to attend the clinic and be tested for malaria for which they could receive free treatment. Denis demonstrated enormous compassion toward people less fortunate than himself, doing so in a quiet, unaffected way that drew people to him.

Denis told me that he had wanted to become an eye specialist, impressed as he had been by the number of preventable eye diseases that abound in the rural areas of Uganda. Alas, this could only be an ambitious dream since he had not had the opportunity to complete a medical degree.

During the time I spent with him, I was beginning to consider the possibility that with a bit of careful financial planning and saving on my part, I might be able to offer him the chance of full time medical training: I was a little naive in thinking that with his clinical officer training and obvious field experience, akin to something like that of a bare-foot doctor, he would be able to enter medical school at least at third year entry!

From London and after further consideration (and a bit of calculation on the 'back of an envelope') I wrote an email to Denis offering to pay his fees should he want to go to medical school.

Some months later, Denis secured a place at Kampala International University (KIU) in the School of Medical Science and not long after, he moved from his village to commence his studies – right back in the first year of a five and half year course.

Now, 2010, he has begun fourth year studying for a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor Surgery (MBChB). It has not been easy for me as the costs have escalated and I now pay for his school
fees, accommodation in Halls of Residence (after he experienced an attempted robbery from his rental off campus) and all his required texts. My sister and brother-in-law also contributed the cost of a microscope and one year of tuition fees and I bought a second-hand computer that had to be replaced this year with a new laptop, external modem and the first month of internet connection. Denis too has experienced the hardship of being many hundreds of miles from his home and family and undertaking formal studies, some subjects of which have pushed him to the limits. However, he has passed each year proving his commitment to graduate. I have never doubted his intention once qualified to remain a doctor in Uganda and ultimately my temporary ‘sacrifice’ will mean that 7,500 + individuals will be able to access a qualified, competent medical practitioner.

I felt greatly honoured last November to receive an email from Denis informing me that he and Catherine had named their newly arrived daughter after me. In spite of my suggestion that she need not be given all my family names, she has been formally named Miriam Lois Pollock. Happily for her, she is known by all the family as Baby Po.