TREATING WARS' SURVIVORS WOMAN TO AID UGANDAN KIDS.Byline: EUGENE TONG Staff Writer GLENDALE -- With speech expertise and an open heart, Melissa McDugald thinks she can improve the lives of a generation of African children traumatized by war and disease. The speech pathologist, based at Glendale Adventist Medical Center Glendale Adventist Medical Center is located in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, California. It was founded in 1905. Glendale Adventist Medical Center is a sister institution of Loma Linda University Medical Center and is a part of the Seventh-day Adventist hospital system. and Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, is heading to Uganda on Tuesday as part of a five-week missionary relief trip to East Africa. ``Africa has always been something dear to my heart,'' said McDugald, 31, of Burbank. ``There had always been a seed in the back of my head that I want to travel there to be able to go there to somehow relieve the stresses that are going through the continent.'' Once there, McDugald plans to deliver a dozen boxes of supplies -- donated in part by her patients -- for an orphanage with 54 children near the capital of Kampala operated by SOS SOS, code letters of the international distress signal. The signal is expressed in International Morse code as … — — — … (three dots, three dashes, three dots). Ministries of Newhall. She also will work with the nation's only speech therapist speech therapist Speech pathologist, speech/language therapist A health professional trained to evaluate and treat voice, speech, language, or swallowing disorders–eg, hearing impairment, that affect communication. See Speech pathology. in hopes of building bridges for further relief in a nation torn A Nation Torn, by Delia Ray, is a child oriented history of how the American Civil War began. It is in the history series A Young Reader's History of the Civil War. A Nation Torn describes the events from 1861 to the first battle of the Civil War at Charleston Harbor. apart by war, AIDS and rebel insurgency. Disease and decades of conflict -- from the murderous rule of Idi Amin in the 1970s to the Lord's Resistance Army Noun 1. Lord's Resistance Army - a quasi-religious rebel group in Uganda that terrorized and raped women and kidnapped children who were forced to serve in the army rebellion today -- have orphaned a generation of Ugandan children, McDugald said. The young often are abducted abducted Distal angulation of an extremity away from the midline of the body in a transverse plane and away from a sagittal plane passing through the proximal aspect of the foot or part, or away from some other specified reference point to serve as labor or soldiers, and the disabled are neglected. ``That's really devastating dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. ,'' she said. ``The average family leaves behind seven children. There is basically no middle-age class in Uganda.'' ``For many of these kids, their parents have died due to AIDS or war,'' Shannon Hurley, the ministry's founder, said in a phone interview from Uganda. ``(McDugald) heard about the plight of these kids and really has a desire to come alongside to help us meet these needs. ``One thing she's bringing are some vitamins, some basic care needs -- underwear, socks -- basic necessities that are helpful in helping these kids live.'' Their traumatic upbringing often leads to development and communication problems, McDugald said. Others diagnosed with autism autism (ô`tĭzəm), developmental disability resulting from a neurological disorder that affects the normal functioning of the brain. It is characterized by the abnormal development of communication skills, social skills, and reasoning. and Down syndrome Down syndrome, congenital disorder characterized by mild to severe mental retardation, slow physical development, and characteristic physical features. Down syndrome affects about 1 in every 730 live births and occurs in all populations equally. , which speech therapy can help, don't get treatment. ``A lot of these kids are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mental disorder that follows an occurrence of extreme psychological stress, such as that encountered in war or resulting from violence, childhood abuse, sexual abuse, or serious accident. , and in the United States, you would actually have a psychologist working with them,'' she said. ``But resources (there) are so limited.'' The trek to Africa is a trip McDugald has been planning since February, though she only decided to reach out to Ugandan speech therapist Sarah Bagnall after reading about treatment in East Africa in a professional journal. Only four cities in the region offer speech and language treatment. The only hospital in Uganda with the service treats about 300 patients a year. Experts estimate about half of the nation's disabled -- roughly 1.3 million -- have some form of communication or feeding disorder. ``The population of the people there in need of rehabilitation, ... those needs are being met in the United States,'' she said. ``Those needs aren't even beginning to be met in Uganda. What I do there will make a great impact.'' eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com (818) 546-3304 CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Melissa McDugald, a speech pathologist, at Glendale Adventist Medical Center and Huntington Memorial in Pasadena, is heading to Uganda on Tuesday as part of a five-week relief trip. She will deliver supplies for an orphanage and work with the only speech therapist in the country to help Ugandan children. The African nation has been torn apart by war, AIDS and the conflict in the Sudan. Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News |
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