Giuseppe Ambrosoli

Father Doctor Giuseppe Ambrosoli (25 July 1923 - 27 March 1987), often referred to as Father Giuseppe or as Dr. Ambrosoli, was a Catholic priest, physician, surgeon, missionary, philanthropist, educator and visionary in Uganda.

Background and education

He was born in Ronago, Italy on 25 July 1923. He studied medicine and surgery at the University of Milan, graduating with the degree of Doctor of Medicine (MD). He then proceeded to obtain the Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (DTM&H) from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, in the United Kingdom. He then returned to Italy and trained to become a Catholic Priest. He was ordained as a priest in Milan on 17 December 1955.

Missionary work

Dr. Ambrosoli trained both as a priest in the Catholic Church and as a physician and surgeon, before he arrived in Uganda, as a member of the Comboni Missionaries. In February 1956, he was posted to Kalongo, in Northern Uganda, to serve as the Parish Priest and also to run a dispensary that at that time was seeing a lot of leprosy cases.

In 1957, Dr. Ambrosoli began the transformation of Kalongo Dispensary into Kalongo Hospital. He is credited with the transformation of care for leprosy patients, by admitting them to the same hospital as other patients, instead of confining them to leprosaria, which at that time were badly managed and led to patient neglect, particularly in Tropical Africa.

Today, the hospital is a 350-bed, community, non-profit, general hospital that admits patients in the disciplines of Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Pediatrics and Obstetrics/Gynecology. The hospital has been renamed, after its founder.

In 1959 he established the St Mary's School of Midwivery, with a view of someday in the future handing over the care of the patients to local Ugandan staff.

Death

Father Doctor Giuseppe Ambrosoli died on Friday 27 March 1987 at the Comboni Mission in Lira, Uganda, as his successor at Kalongo, Dr. Fr. Egidio Tocalli, was en route to evacuate him by helicopter. The cause of his death is stated as Renal Failure. His final resting place is not clear at this time.

After his death

In March 1987, as the Lord's Resistance Army insurgency waged in the Acholi sub-region, and in the neighbouring subregions of Lango and Teso, the Uganda People's Defense Force, forcibly evacuated the staff and patients of Kalongo Hospital and set fire to the medicine and hospital supplies left behind, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the LRA. The nursing school was temporarily relocated to Angal Hospital, near the town of Nyaravur in Nebbi District. Dr. Ambrosoli Memorial Hospital was re-established in 1989 and the nursing school was relocated back to Kalongo in 1990.