Better a live dog than a dead lion: FINS university shames Lubowa ‘hospital’

He looked for the best possible hospital on the continent in that field, upon which, at government expense, he flew to South Africa. 

He made himself comfortable in a facility where people basically pay through the nose. After a thorough examination he was advised that the operation was a very delicate, complex affair and there were only a few experts in Africa who could handle it.

He would have to wait a few days for the expert to be flown in. A week or so later, the official found himself in the hands of the very same doctor he had rejected back home in Mulago. When the Bible talks about the stone that the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone, it is real in many areas of life. 

I usually do coffee with journalists in every town I visit in Uganda – they always are full of stories; all I have to do is just sit quietly and listen.

That’s how, a year ago, while in Fort Portal, I sat up straight when the journalists talked at length about a new university that specialised only in health sciences and which was advancing a completely new approach to teaching.

The students, the journalists said, spent a lot of time in practical research in the communities. In a country where university students don’t usually attend class and spend most of the time drinking and sleeping around, and end up with degree certificates without practical skills, I thought this was news. 

Wiseacre that I am, I went to verify this. That is how I ended up at Fins Medical University, where I spent the rest of that day. Turns out the university is a brainchild of a very local, very simple fellow, Victor Kalenzi and his wife Philomenah.

Life didn’t go very well for Kalenzi in his early years, I gathered. As a boy, he aspired to become a medical doctor, but his dreams were dashed against the rocks by a series of misfortunes that knocked him out of the education race.

When, after working hard in business, he got some money, he decided to build a university where people could be trained to become doctors. It began in 2010 as Fort Portal International Nursing School, FINS. 

In 2018, it was granted a university license, whereupon it rebranded as FINS Medical University. When you meet Kalenzi on the university campus, you’d be perfectly excused to think he is one of the casual workers. He was driving a well-weathered Toyota Corolla, ferrying this and that. But he employs hundreds of people and his facility educates thousands of young people. He has set up a nice teaching hospital and is looking forward to, very soon, producing his first doctors. It is a work in progress, but one that shows that even though government is obsessed with bringing in foreign investors as the answer to everything, the truth is that Ugandans have the potential to drive their country forward – let’s invest in our own people. 

In 2019 when government approved Shs1.3 trillion (did you hear that?) for the so-called “International Specialised Hospital” in Lubowa, hopes were high that something good was in store, especially since foreigners, who are presumed to be wiser, better and sharper than we ordinary mortals in black skins, were in charge. That money magically disappeared and today there is no hospital; we only hear of billions more being asked for, to “supervise” a project that doesn’t exist.

When the Bible rhetorically asks, “who has despised the day of small beginnings?” you get the feeling it is talking about the likes of FINS Medical University, putting the Lubowa project and its owners to shame. When the Bible declares “better a live dog than a dead lion” you can’t help comparing FINS Medical University and its nice hospital with the Lubowa phantom of a hospital.

Mr Tegulle is an advocate of the High Court of Uganda     
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