Dr. Begumisa Simon is a 26-year-old student who was doing a Bachelors of Medicine at Gulu University. He just concluded the course and is yet to graduate. In his first year, he conceived a dream. He desired to own a medical center. He spent the last 5 years pondering how he would achieve this.
“I started by saving about UGX. 100, 000 of my living allowances,” he said in an exclusive interview with Campus Bee. Being on government scholarship, he received some money from the government and always set aside an amount for his savings.
He did not realize enough capital from these savings for his dream. He invested the money into a small business where he supplied foodstuffs especially Irish potatoes, with a hope to get more savings.
“My biggest customer was Bomah Hotel in Gulu,” he remembers. He concerted with a few other suppliers and loaded the potatoes onto trucks and buses from Kisoro to Gulu. It was unfortunate for Begumisa that the business did not last a year. “It collapsed.” he reveals.
His brother, Kategaya Rogers, a lecturer and PHD student at Makerere University, advised him to grow rice on Kalangala Island which idea he took on.
“I sold my Samsung tablet so that I could invest the money in 20 hectares of land.” He used the money from the tablet to purchase rice seeds, and also used some of it to clear the bush. His brother is resident on the island.
“In Kalangala, palm oil farmers give you free land to cultivate on condition that you keep their gardens free of weeds.” The presence of the brother also made it easy to acquire the land. I used part of my allowances to purchase pesticides and fertilizers. A family friend Betty Natuhwera, who is a palm oil farmer on the island helped a lot with the “Kalangala project.”
The year was hit by a drought that destroyed the garden and the rice on it, which frustrated all efforts of Begumisa to achieve his dream.
“I decided to take up something that needed less capital.” He got advice from his lecturer, Professor David Kitara Lagoro, to write a project proposal. The new venture seemed very lucrative for Begumisa because his professor had acquired a lot of money from one of the proposals he wrote.
“I wrote a proposal on Hepatitis B screening and vaccination, targeting Child Development Centre (CDC) sponsored children in Uganda.” His project was funded UGX. 400 million. In the implementation of the project, he has recently vaccinated 3,000 children in Western Uganda for the first dose. He awaits the second dose that will take place this Friday, a month after the first one and third dose after five months.
After the first dose, he looked for a favorable location to set up his clinic. When he conducted a market survey, he finally settled for Kyengera. The place, he remembers, lacked a modern clinic with good diagnostic, maternity and health services. The place along Masaka road was highly populated, making it easy for him to make his decision.
He rented a place for 6 months in advance, with partitions in the building at about UGX. 15 million. He imported equipment including an Ultrasound scan, a microscope, hematology machine, and an X-ray machine among others.
“On 9th September 2017, I opened the ‘Georgewell Doctor’s clinic to the public.” He named the clinic after his father Begumisa George. The clinic/hospital offers doctor consultation, HIV testing, and Counselling, Hepatitis B screening, Cervical cancer screening, general medical check-ups, surgery and insurance among other services. The clinical was recommended for licensing by the Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council.
“I hope to acquire a hospital status by next year, God willing,” he says. He has 8 staff members on his payroll. One doctor, three nurses, two lab guys, a scan guy and the officer cleaner.
His advice to students out there is to work very hard and look beyond the marks in class and exams. “You have to think very big and forge means of getting there, and most importantly to have the courage to follow your heart.”
Dr. Baguma Shaba, a former student from the same university believes in the hard work of Bemugisa. “He is a very hard working person, and very resilient. I admire him for that.”
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