Doctor Justin Okello is our area program manager in southwestern Uganda. He oversees two refugee settlements and two transit centers where we provide medical care and run community healthcare programs.

I sat down with him to hear about the most pressing challenges his teams are facing right now.

1. Malnutrition is Rising and Complicating Other Illnesses

Due to suspended funding, Dr. Okello’s emergency nutrition program was halted in February and reinstated in July when the suspension for that program was lifted—but during that time, people who were already moderately malnourished had nowhere to get help. Last month, a country-wide assessment found that malnutrition rates DOUBLED during the 4 months those programs were suspended.

This rapidly escalating crisis is particularly devastating to children. Malnourished children are extremely vulnerable to infections, turning every “minor” illness that a healthy child would easily fight off into a potentially deadly threat.

“80% of the deaths we have seen in transit centers among new arrivals are children who die from pneumonias who have underlying malnutrition. Without malnutrition, these children would have likely survived.”

2. Medication Shortages are Causing Preventable Deaths

Among the facilities he supervises, Dr. Okello says the out-of-stock rate for essential medications is 20%. So even if he prescribes a patient the medicine they need, there’s a 20% chance they won’t be able to get it. This is a gut-wrenching situation for doctors who are trying to provide quality care for their patients.

“One kind of medication we are having particular problems getting are medicines for treatment of non-communicable diseases, especially diabetes and hypertension. Poor control and management of those non-communicable diseases leads to slow but sure organ damage,” he shared.

If these chronic diseases aren’t managed, organs slowly deteriorate, making treatment more complicated and expensive. Eventually, without these medications, patients die. “Non-communicable diseases are the third leading cause of mortalities in our operation right now,” Dr. Okello shared. “This is directly linked to the lack of essential medicines.”

3. Morale is Low, and Stress is High

“In the southwestern region where I work alone, we have lost 322 staff since January 2025 [due to lack of funding]. So, the effect is that remaining staff are burnt out. If you go to different health centers, you’ll appreciate that there’s a big element of stress on the faces of our staff.”

As grant-funded programs are eliminated by government agencies, so are the jobs that went with them. But despite the layoffs, our staff on the ground are working around the clock to provide the best quality of care they can. Dr. Okello shared that most staff in his clinics are now working 12-hours shifts, 7 days a week due to the increased demand for services and decreased number of providers.

He also shared that it’s becoming more and more common for staff to not take their earned leave or vacation due to what he called the “skeletal” nature of our human resources on the ground. A lack of rest has serious consequences in healthcare settings—like for the few remaining ambulance drivers who run their vehicles day and night to keep up with demand, increasing their risk of falling asleep at the wheel and putting both their lives and the lives of the patients they are transporting in jeopardy.

4. Long Wait Times are Negatively Impacting Patient Care

Dr. Okello reports that, in his clinics, patients sometimes wait up to 6 hours to be seen due to reductions in staff. This is keeping people from seeking care, sometimes with serious consequences.

For example, Dr. Okello’s goal is for 60% of pregnant mothers in the communities where he works to attend prenatal appointments during their first trimester. This helps doctors find complications early, ensure that moms are eating enough to support their pregnancy, and support them as they prepare for delivery. But now, he and his team are seeing a sharp drop in the number of mothers coming in for prenatal care.

“The long wait times deter mothers from seeking preventive care that would benefit their pregnancy, which means that they might have bigger issues down the road that could have been identified and prevented,” Dr. Okello said. “But we can’t expect them to wait around that long to receive care.”

This is putting the lives of mothers and their unborn children at higher risk for birth complications, premature labor, and preventable emergencies.

5. Medical Teams is a Difference-Maker

Dr. Okello never hesitated to praise the dedication, expertise, and tenacity of our staff. He shared that, in many of the clinics where our teams work alongside government-employed health care providers, the spirit and passion of our organizational calling to “love like Jesus” always shines through the care our staff provides.

In the regions where our teams have suffered staff and service reductions, Dr. Okello says both the quality and availability of care has suffered. When Medical Teams withdraws, our absence is keenly felt.

“Something I can confidently say is that—where Medical Teams is, there’s always a difference in the quality of care.”

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Dr. Okello and his teams are just a few of the thousands of incredible men and women who work tirelessly to provide the expert medical care that we are known for around the world. But due to dwindling resources , they are faced with inevitable burnout, logistical impossibilities, and the heartbreak of facing dying patients without the ability to treat them.

You can prevent this and help give our doctors the tools they need to continue saving lives by making a generous gift this month. Every gift made thorough August 31st will be doubled—and trust me—Dr. Okello and his staff need all the support we can send them.

Lives are on the line. You can make a difference for people in crisis AND our doctors and nurses who show up day after day, in the toughest conditions, to love them and care for them.