Bushenyi Alliance for Rural Health & Development

Norman residents envision a Ugandan health clinic named for Dr. Belknap

Posted by the Norman Transcript on December 22, 2008
by Andy Rieger 366-3543 editor@normantranscript.com

Sitting in Dr. Hal Belknap's funeral this past spring, Amy Williams had an epiphany of sorts. The longtime Norman physician and Scout leader's love of medicine was deep. Why couldn't it also be wide, she thought.

Williams had served as an assistant Scoutmaster for "Dr. B" as he was affectionately known. He was full of life and his April death at age 73 robbed Norman of a driving force in medicine and Scouting.

"Maybe we could honor him by setting up a clinic in Uganda where his love of medicine could stretch across the world," said Williams, a longtime area educator.

Williams had been to southwest Uganda and was an orphan sponsor. She helped a group deliver mosquito bed nets and took some medical supplies donated by Belknap's Troop 777. She traveled there with a BARHD, a Tulsa-based non-profit that promotes rural health and development in Bushenyi, a southwest Ugandan district. She found the lack of basic supplies for education and health care appalling.

Sanitation is poor. They have high rates of child death, malaria, HIV-AIDS and other preventable diseases.

"It's a beautiful country with a lot of poverty. Women are not respected. Men sometimes have wives in several villages," she said.

The villagers were not used to visits as most aid remains in the capital and rarely makes it out into the rural areas. Their group was greeted warmly.

"They felt like their lives mattered because we came to visit them," she said. "They were happy for you to give them a pencil."

Williams and others found a village, Kyeibanga, that was not too far from the airport and was accessible so that health practitioners could get there. Local leaders embraced the clinic idea and have started rehabilitating an abandoned building.

They have already built a staff quarters. They want to treat malaria, hold pre-natal clinics and teach mothers about nutrition and disease prevention. Williams and Dr. Belknap's widow, JoAnn, will travel there in 2009 to officially open the clinic.

Mrs. Belknap plans to study up on Uganda before traveling there. She said her husband would have been excited about the project.

"Medical missionary work was on his to do list," she said. Williams said the group has raised enough money to get the clinic up and running, "but we don't have enough to sustain it." Fundraisers are planned after the first of the year. Donations can be mailed to BARHD, Box 702008, Tulsa, OK 74170.

"I can't think of a bigger influence on people than going out where they have nothing and making such a difference in their lives," Williams said. "And doing it in memory of Dr. B. is a great motivator."

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