I had the opportunity to travel to Mbarara, Uganda last year as part of the Global Health Track in my internal medicine residency program. There, I worked along side residents and attending at Mbarara University of Science and Technology or MUST. I was able to participate in the medicine wards, emergency department, and clinic. Patients from all over western Uganda travel hours, sometimes even days to receive care at MUST, and most have difficulty financing their care. Uganda does not have a national health insurance policy. There are public hospitals but they cannot provide 100% free care due to resource allocation limitations. Therefore, individuals must pay out of pocket for care and those who cannot are constrained from accessing basic healthcare services.

I witnessed instances in which patients could not afford basic labs, imaging or life saving dialysis. I witnessed patients bringing their own bed sheets, washing them outside and hanging them to dry because the hospital itself cannot finance linens. I witnessed patients having to go to town to buy their own supplies for procedures like bone marrow biopsies.

Given the degree of financial constraints within this patient population, the physicians at MUST created a fund in order to assist with financing basic medical care for their patients. This project is primarily funded by the residents themselves. The fund covers basic lab tests, medicine and food for the most resource limited patients.

I will be returning to MUST in late March and would greatly appreciate any donations that will go directly to the Patient Fund.

Below I have a list of common costs of medial care:

- CBC: 15,000 shillings ($4)

- BMP: 30,000 shillings ($8)

- CT head: 250,000 shillings ($68)

- MRI: 500,000 shillings ($135)

- Ultrasound: 35,000 shillings ($10)