Irish Doctor Recounts Uganda Experience

An Irish doctor in Uganda has recounted her experience of setting up hospices in Africa in a book published yesterday, writes Alison Healy. Dr Anne Merriman (75), a former nun with the Irish Medical Missionaries of Mary, wrote Audacity to Love, the Story of Hospice Africa after spending the last 17 years establishing the charity organisation. It has now cared for more than 160,000 patients.

Hospice Africa Uganda now employs 135 in three centres. More than 7,000 personnel from Uganda and other sub-Saharan countries have also been trained, allowing hospice care to spread to wider regions in Africa.

Dr Merriman began the work after visiting Nairobi Hospice and seeing that patients with advanced disease and in severe pain were sent home to die with just a few paracetamol. Dr Merriman developed a type of morphine that is cheaper, accessible and more acceptable to people in Africa.

The book is published by the Irish Hospice Foundation.

This article appeared in the Irish Times Health Supplement on Monday, 19th July 2010