From left: Durango residents Kathy Darnell, executive director of Step Up Uganda, nurse Bethany Graf and nurse Debra Price administer health services to Ugandans last week.

Courtesy of Tony Kabuye, Step Up Uganda

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From left: Durango residents Kathy Darnell, executive director of Step Up Uganda, nurse Bethany Graf and nurse Debra Price administer health services to Ugandans last week.

Courtesy of Tony Kabuye, Step Up Uganda

Durango nurse Debra Price spent two weeks in Uganda to help provide health services to families in need.

Courtesy of Tony Kabuye, Step Up Uganda

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Durango nurse Debra Price spent two weeks in Uganda to help provide health services to families in need.

Courtesy of Tony Kabuye, Step Up Uganda

Durango nurse Bethany Graf gives a vaccination to Uganda children.

Courtesy of Tony Kabuye, Step Up Uganda

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Durango nurse Bethany Graf gives a vaccination to Uganda children.

Courtesy of Tony Kabuye, Step Up Uganda

Aidah, left, and Durango nurse Bethany Graf give health advice to a Ugandan woman. Aidah was an interpreter for the two Durango nurses who visited the country for two weeks to provide health services. Aidah is an HIV/AIDS counselor in Uganda. To receive her public health degree, she received help from Carolle Anne Massone, a former director of the Pueblo Community College Nursing School and Mercy Regional Medical Center employee.

Courtesy of Tony Kabuye, Step Up Uganda

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Aidah, left, and Durango nurse Bethany Graf give health advice to a Ugandan woman. Aidah was an interpreter for the two Durango nurses who visited the country for two weeks to provide health services. Aidah is an HIV/AIDS counselor in Uganda. To receive her public health degree, she received help from Carolle Anne Massone, a former director of the Pueblo Community College Nursing School and Mercy Regional Medical Center employee.

Courtesy of Tony Kabuye, Step Up Uganda

Step Up Uganda Executive Director Kathy Darnell and two Durango nurses – Bethany Graf and Debra Price – returned a few days ago from Uganda. There, they provided health services to rural Ugandans. Darnell said there was a large turnout in villages outside the capital city of Kampala. The three women provided HIV/AIDS testing and counseling, child vaccinations, malaria vaccinations and treated miscellaneous wounds, infections and diseases.

Darnell, Graf and Price (who are graduates of Pueblo Community College) worked with nurses from Ntenjera clinic to create a sustainable program. Darnell said everyone involved learned a lot from each other.

The nurses also worked at Mengo Hospital, where Graf and Price delivered three babies in one day.

Darnell explained the meaning of “Mengo Hospital.” Historically, no matter what the circumstances were, men were always treated first. When the founder of the hospital was coming up with a name, he settled on Mengo as a way to indicated “men go” so that women were treated first. This was his effort to give women equal access to triage and health care.