Bwindi Community Hospital

Bwindi Community Hospital (BCH) in southwest Uganda serves a population of about 100,000 rural residents, mostly impoverished subsistence farmers and their families. Clients include the indigenous Batwa pygmies, conservation refugees from the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. Many of BCH’s clients would have no access to healthcare without its services.

BCH was established in 2003 by American medical missionary Dr. Scott Kellermann. It is now managed and run by an all-Ugandan staff and has been named the best-performing hospital in Uganda since 2009. The Kellermann Foundation supports BCH with program partnerships, volunteers, and funding. The hospital’s vision is a healthy and productive community, free from preventable disease and with excellent health services accessible to all.

Bwindi Community Hospital is a 112-bed full-service hospital which provides high quality care in the areas of Maternal and Child Health, Sexual and Reproductive Health, HIV/AIDS, TB, Surgery, Adult Inpatient, Eyes, Dental, and Outpatient Medicine. The hospital provides community health outreach and education throughout the district, and it has two satellite clinics serving populations in isolated rural areas. At its pregnant clients, BCH provides comprehensive safe birth services, including prenatal care, normal and caesarean deliveries, emergency obstetrics, breastfeeding support, postnatal and neonatal care.

Before BCH was built, most local residents had virtually no access to healthcare. The nearest facility was a 1 & 1/2-hour drive away, an insurmountable distance when your only means of transportation is your own feet. Through BCH’s maternal health program, mothers and babies are surviving – and thriving.