Holy Innocents Hospital Kamutur is a social enterprise health facility located in the rural heart of Kamutur Sub-County, Bukedea District in Eastern Uganda. Established in 2014 by Moses Aisia in memory of two newborns that tragically passed away during delivery – due to inadequate maternal care in a public hospital – the hospital was founded to address the severe gaps in rural healthcare provision and to ensure that such preventable loss does not repeat itself.

Holy Innocents Hospital operates 24 hours a day and maintains a bed occupancy rate of approximately 80%. It serves patients from Bukedea as well as neighbouring Kumi, Sironko and Bulambuli districts. The hospital collaborates closely with the District Health System and the Government of Uganda and aligns its services with the national health policy as outlined by the Ministry of Health.

The hospital currently provides general medical, maternal, surgical, and laboratory services. However, it lacks specialized neurology and stroke care services, forcing patients to travel over 100-130km to Mbale or Soroti Regional Referral Hospitals – often after critical treatment windows have passed.

The operating theatre at Holy Innocents Hospital (HIH) started operation in 2017 and has been very functional to date. It has been a cornerstone of surgical care within the community of Kamutur subcounty and surrounding districts. Due to the nature of the community, the majority of the cases worked on have been elective surgeries performed during the surgical camps organised with support from a few partners in health. HIH has hosted 22 surgical camps since the functionality of the operation theatre in 2017.

During the surgical camps, the patients from the Kamutur community and the neighbouring districts receive surgical services at subsidized fees, which are quite affordable. Consequently, the hospital has also worked on the emergency cases that required surgical services.

The operating theatre has had 835 major surgeries performed, including obstetric (caesarean section with tubal ligation), gynaecological (oophorectomy, cystectomy, total abdominal hysterectomy, and salpingectomy), and general surgery procedures (thyroidectomy, herniorrhaphy, orchidopexy, haemorrhoidectomy, hydrocelectomy, laparotomy, cataract surgery, supra-pubic catheterization, splenectomy, appendectomy, gastrostomy, colostomy, and mastectomy). Additionally, 332 (excision of swellings, circumcision, cervical tear repairs, evacuation, dilation and curettage, surgical toilet and suturing, surgical debridement, incision and drainage, and other minor operations) have been performed. All the surgical cases have recovered well with no documented events of significant surgical complications.

Volunteer Roles

The volunteers will work along with local staff based on their training and experience. They will do both day and night duties, five days a week, 8 hour shift, and have weekends for sight seeing.

The hospital guest huts are showed in the photos.

Transport while on duty will be provided by the hospital and private trips, travel for sight seeing must be paid for by volunteers.