Hope Ward is a 25-bed charity wing of International Hospital Kampala (IHK), Uganda’s first ISO certified medical institution. Hope Ward was commissioned in May 2006 and in its first year provided care to more than 250 patients. The infrastructure and equipment has been provided free of charge by IHK.

IHK is Uganda’s leading independent hospital with 200 beds, employing 500 staff. The Hospital was envisaged, built and is directed by Doctor Ian Clarke, a British citizen who has a heart for Uganda, and has lived in the country for almost 20 years. Ian has already developed a renowned training hospital in Kiwoko, which he set up from grass roots following the bush war in Luwero in 1988.

IHK’s aim is to raise and set the standards of health in Uganda, especially with regard to the quality of care we are able to offer patients.

In Hope Ward, we aim to cater for the underprivileged, who require high quality,complex treatment but are unable to fund it themselves. We intend to do what we can to alleviate the suffering and improve the quantity and quality of life in our patients.

Amongst our charity patients, we are focusing on the following areas which require specialist medical care:

1. Victims who have been traumatized from the war in Northern Uganda and who require plastic surgery.
2. Complex cancer treatment for both children and adults.
3. Restoring the physical and psychological victims of burns and acid attacks.
4. Caring for children with complications arising from HIV and AIDS.
5. Complex gynaecological surgery (vesico-vaginal fistula repair) only recently treated in Uganda.
6. Surgery to repair Atrial-Septal Defects (ASD) commonly known as a hole in the heart, a first for Uganda.

The operational costs for Hope Ward are subsidised by IHK, e.g. HW does not pay rent or contribute to the capital costs of establishing the required infrastructure; allocated costs of providing care, including drugs and surgery, are made at zero margin, the equivalent of a 30% subsidy.

Notwithstanding the above, first year costs were almost £100,000. These costs were met largely by sponsorship, £54,000  of which was given by International Medical Group (Dr. Clarke's holding company). You can read more about this on the Giving page.

KZ 
This 37 yr old lady had a slow growing mass on her left cheek over several years. Unfortunately, the patient did not seek specialist help due to her financial situation. A friend had heard about the newly opened Hope Ward and persuaded the patient to seek help. Sadly, her friend’s concerns were justified and the cheek mass was confirmed to be an aggressive cancer. KZ needed several weeks of intensive radiotherapy as well as high doses of pain relief.

The lessons learned from this patient are that sadly, if diseases are left untreated, there is less chance of cure. At Hope Ward, with sponsored help, our message is that we wish to ensure that there is no need for disadvantaged patients to “leave it too late” for the chance of cure. For this individual, however, even though we could not completely cure the disease, we have achieved a difference in her quality of life, reduced the pain and shrunk the size of tumour that had grown so aggressively.