January / February 2010 Issue |
Healthcare Journal of Baton Rouge
19
e have all seen the stories about
the high rates of HIV/AIDS in sub-
Saharan African countries. The par-
entless children. The infected
babies. It is heartbreaking indeed,
yet, faced with the chronically ill
patient sitting in your exam room in dis-
tress, the crippling obesity epidemic in
the U.S., and the threat of the latest
round of reimbursement cuts, it is some-
times easier to tune out the troubles on the
other side of the world. For one local gas-
troenterologist, however, it is not so simple. For while he
gives his patients in Baton Rouge and Gonzales the best
of care, his heart, his mission, his vision remains in
Uganda where he was born. Dr. Robert Muhumuza works
at Our Lady of the Lake, teaches at LSU and is part of a
private practice in Gonzales, but he is also a founder and
board member of Savannah Sunrises (SAS), a foundation
dedicated to providing affordable healthcare to the people
of Uganda and to the eradication of HIV/AIDS in that coun-
try. Muhumuza and his foundation are not alone in that
January / February 2010 Issue |
Healthcare Journal of Baton Rouge
27