Rose of Sharon Medical Centre Nebbi, NW Uganda

The Rose of Sharon Medical Centre was the inspiration and dream of two ladies- Stella Canrach, womens leader, of Paidha, Uganda and Sharon Oliver of Eagles Wings UK. It started under a mango tree in 2010 and was finally opened in 2016 to serve the local ladies of the North West Nile region of Uganda. From very humble beginnings Eagles Wings bought land, constructed the medical centre and has fully funded the staff, medical bills and operational costs for 7 years before handing it over to a local Ugandan team in 2023.

The maternity and medical centre has successfully overseen over 750 births and has never lost a mother in childbirth. One of the primary reasons for the building of this centre was to bring professional maternity care into a region that was experiencing up to 50% death rates of mother or baby in rural communities. The project has changed the statistics completely.

The staff of ROSMC have additionally attended to hundreds of local people in the outpatient department, organised over 14 medical camps and outreaches into the surrounding communities, immunised thousands of children for typhoid, BCG, measles, polio, Hep B and rotovirus. With a fully equipped laboratory regular testing takes place for malaria, HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.

During Covid, the Zombo district of Uganda, where the centre is located,  became one of the most challenging areas for young girls and over 4000 pregnancies were recorded. Apart from seeing an increase of younger girls at the facility, an urgent programme of sex education, health and awareness was started at ROSMC for both young girls and boys aged 11 upwards. Over 100 youth attended the first session of which 60 were boys. One of the boys said, "please can you do this every week because nobody has ever talked to us about these things"

The local ladies have been enthusiastic and supportive from the start

Eagles Wings employed 9 full time staff at the centre all of whom were actively involved in the medical camps which were funded from UK supporters. These camps enabled local people to see Doctors and be given free consultations and treatment medication over three days. Typical attendance was at least 1500 over a three day camp. In the picture below there are three UK Doctors: Peter, Douglas and Funke plus a Real Estate Manager, an accountant, a purser for Emirates Airlines, a care worker and a PA for a London Borough Council. All brought their skills!