American Missionary Claiming To Be A Doctor Led To The Deaths of More Than 100 Ugandan Babies

The world is sadly replete with horror stories and cases of blatant injustice on a daily basis. These stories are incensing, and the hope one carries is that someday, somehow, justice will prevail. And some atrocities are perpetrated in the name of "saving others" and it is this toxic mentality that results in these cases happening. 

When Renee Bach arrived in Uganda, she propagated the idea that she deeply and genuinely cared for the welfare of children. She carried an aura of being the saviour, sent on a divine mission whose call cannot be disputed. Her purported work was centred on saving children from malnutrition. She formed an NGO called "Serving His Children" to this effect. 

But her works were far from saving children from malnutrition. They were sinister. Renee Bach is currently being accused of masquerading as a doctor claiming to "treat" children yet she has zero medical training and experience. No formal medical training at all. And this has resulted in the deaths of over 100 babies. She would take children from the hospitals claiming to "treat" them at her organization.

In one of the cases a child was brought to her organization from a clinic so that he could be treated for malnutrition. The child went to another centre, apparently feeling well, but died 3 days later after a sudden heart attack. What had caused this is that Renee Bach's NGO had just made this child look fat and healthy, but there was no attempt at looking for the root causes of such a severe case of malnutrition. Not even a follow up. And this reckless attitude was there because Renee Bach does not have any formal medical training and any formal experience on child welfare. 

The most harrowing thing about this is that Renee Bach routinely practised medicine on the children that were admitted at her centre. Even though she had medical professionals as staff, she did this on her own (and remember, she has scant information about medicine). This was all stuff she taught herself. And would want to administer that on children.

She is being sued by Gimbo Zubeda and Kakai Rose from Masese in Jinja District, who are doing so in forces with a Civil Society Organisation, Women's Probono Initiative. They claim that Bach's actions led to the death of their children as they were in her care. The women fell under the misrepresentation that Bach was a medical doctor, as she would often spot a white coat and a stethoscope while administering medication to children in her care. After the children had died, that is when they discovered that Bach is not a medical doctor at all. In 2015, the District Health Officer had even closed her facility and prohibited her from offering any treatment to children.

In one of her blog posts, which has since been taken down, she wrote, "I hooked the baby up to oxygen and got to work….As I took her temperature, started an IV, checked her blood sugar, tested for malaria, and looked at her HB count… I was attempting to diagnose the many problems that could potentially be at hand…After doing a search for blood around Jinja town, we found her type and it was a match! We started the transfusion…”

She openly talked about enjoying "hands on medical care." But in uttering this, she was sanctioning the death of children by her own actions. Actions originating from a warped sense of supremacy. It has been a struggle to hold Bach accountable. She is elusive as her whereabouts are not available. 

One of the women suing her, Zabede, said, "'There are procedural and regulatory mechanisms that ought to be followed when establishing a medical facility in Uganda. Even so the law provides for licensing agencies and protocols for who should practice medicine in Uganda. It is unacceptable, narcissistic behavior, for any one, black or white, rich or poor, missionary or angel to pass off as a 'medical practitioner' when they are not."

Her organization has strongly refuted these allegations. The board of the NGO, run from the United States, turns a blind eye to complaints about Renee Bach's malicious and deadly negligence. The board is comprised of friends and family. 

But, truth be told, it would be in the best interests of justice for Renee Bach to be held accountable for the deaths she caused. She should be under prosecution both from Uganda and the United States.

Header image credit - medium.com/@nowhitesaviors