A global challenge

BUHOMA, Uganda — Donning a stethoscope, Don Fultz listens to the heartbeat of a Batwa child while other Nevada County volunteers clean instruments inside the dental clinic.

Fultz, a semi-retired real estate developer from Nevada City, is checking ill patients at a Pygmy settlement in southwestern Uganda, near the home of medical missionaries Scott and Carol Kellermann.



So far, on this two-week June trip organized by western Nevada County Rotary clubs, Fultz has discovered one little girl with tachycardia — or rapid heartbeat — a few children with tuberculosis, and several with malaria.

“Really the main thing I was doing there was showing their mothers that we really cared for the children by touching them and taking care of them,” he said Friday about the experience. “The actual medical part was relatively simple.”

Fultz was one of 12 Nevada County visitors to the Kellermanns’ hospital in Uganda, where these Californians from all walks of life quickly found themselves immersed in the medical basics of international aid.

While the final diagnosis and treatment of a patient rests with Dr. Scott Kellermann, who relocated from Nevada City with his wife almost five years ago, even volunteers with no medical training quickly learn the symptoms of the most common ailments while visiting the Buhoma hospital.

Learning here is just as important as giving.

John Standen, a retired insurance broker, quickly acquired the skill he jokingly referred to as “gauzology,” or cutting gauze needed to stop bleeding gums after a tooth had been extracted by a visiting dentist.

Nevada County’s deputy district attorney Jim Phillips became adept at charting medical statistics.

Lessons learned on the journey vary from the simple, to the emotionally trying and more enduring, with many questions left unanswered.

Faith and support

Visitors to Buhoma quickly witness the Kellermanns’ strong Christian faith, which the couple shares warmly and openly. Having faith, however, is not a requirement for their visitors, and their work is supported by a wide swath of people, both secular and faith-based.

Medical students from Scott Kellermann’s alma mater, Tulane University, are often visiting to learn about tropical medicine, and local traditional healers are welcomed to the hospital to learn new tricks of the trade.

Scott Kellermann likes to tell a story about a group of contractors from Bakersfield who, like many Americans, came with high expectations of what they could accomplish. They wanted to build a school to U.S. standards for the Batwa in a week. In addition, and despite the fact that they were visiting a missionary couple, they didn’t want to talk about God or have any prayer sessions.

The group didn’t realize that their visit coincided with the rainy season, Kellermann said. Each day, after the crew spent the morning laying brick and mortar, the rains would begin and they’d spend the afternoon under a tarp with the Batwa watching their work wash away. They went home feeling like they’d failed with a partially constructed building left behind, Kellermann said, but they promised to return.

And return they did, spending the time during their next trip finishing the building, playing practical jokes on one another, and just hanging out with the Batwa and talking about their lives.

This time the contractors finished the school, but failed to take into account the spiritual nature of the Batwa, who later approached Kellermann, wanting to know more about their new friends’ faith. Prior to that, Scott Kellermann said, the Batwa weren’t interested in talking about their spirituality. But when the Pygmies met this easy-going prankster group, they felt a connection.

The Bakersfield crew left more of an impression on the Batwa than most other visitors, he said, and they weren’t even trying.

Rotary itself is not affiliated with any religious organization, although for some, helping the Kellermanns does have an important spiritual meaning. Fultz is one example, along with fellow Rotarian and Kellermann supporter, Dick Panzica. Panzica has never been to Uganda, but he has helped Fultz raise thousands of dollars for the efforts through the Kellermann Foundation, which they founded earlier this year.

“God pointed (Don and I) in a direction, and the community responded,” Panzica said, “I just knew it was something I needed to do."

Needs at home

The cost of operating the hospital is estimated to be about $80,000 to $100,000 a year, said Scott Kellermann, and all of it comes from donations. A container with more than $80,000 worth of donated medical equipment and a complete X-ray room given by local Rotary clubs also just arrived at the hospital in mid-July.

Not all Nevada County residents see merit in this type of international aid, said Grass Valley residents Barry and Sharyn Turner, veteran leaders of similar overseas volunteer trips. They have long been besieged with questions from some Nevada County locals who wonder why they must leave the county — and the country — to do volunteer work. After all, help is needed at home, too.

This question is a difficult one, especially since donor money and volunteering keep many area nonprofits and government-run services afloat.

But Sharyn Turner, a nurse for the Nevada Joint Union High School District and one of the June visitors to Uganda, said she has seen the local benefit of international work. When people go overseas and do this kind of work, she said, it seems to motivate them to become more involved when they return home.

On Monday, the Turners are flying back to Uganda, leading a second local Rotary group to visit the Kellermanns. This time, they hope to leave a lasting legacy by helping install a permanent dental suite in the Buhoma hospital.

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To contact staff writer Brittany Retherford, e-mail brittanyr@theunion.com or call 477-4247.