Face of Nation : A US missionary has been accused of lying about being a medical professional while treating children in Uganda after more than 100 babies allegedly died at her facility.
After leaving Virginia in 2007, Renee Bach set up a private non-governmental organisation called Serving His Children (SHC) in eastern Uganda.
She is accused of leading parents of children in her care to believe she was a doctor despite having no medical training.
Ms Bach allegedly took children suffering from malnutrition from local hospitals and “treated” them at her facility.
Claims have since emerged more than 100 children died while receiving treatment at her non-government organisation, according to AllAfrica.
Two mothers have launched legal action against Ms Bach after their children died at her facility, claiming the US missionary was responsible for their deaths.
Gimbo Zubeda and Kakai Rose, with the help of the Women’s Probono Initative, are suing Ms Bach for actions they believe led to the death of their children.
Ms Bach’s alleged deception is outlined in a statement released by the Initiative in January of this year.
“The mothers allege that they were led to believe that Ms. Renee Bach was a ‘medical doctor’ and that her home was a ‘medical facility’,” the statement reads.
Ms Bach was often seen around the facility wearing a white coat and stethoscope and often administered medication to children.
However, when their children died, the women were informed Ms Bach had no medical training and the District Health Officer had closed Ms Bach’s facility in 2015 and ordered her to not offer anymore treatment to children.
But even after being ordered to shut down, Ms Bach still continued to treat severely ill children that needed proper medical attention.
“The Women’s Probono Initiative and the two women are thus alleging that the actions of Renee and SHC led to the death of hundreds of children amounting to violations of human rights,” the statement reads.
The complainants are asking the Jinja High Court in Uganda to shut down SHC.
Now-deleted blog posts, which were attributed to Ms Bach, describe instances of where she claims to have rendered medical treatment to children.
In one post she described how she treated a nine-month-old baby that had been brought to the facility barely alive.
“I hooked the baby up to oxygen and got to work … I took her temperature, started an IV, checked her blood sugar, tested for malaria and looked at her HB count,” the post read.
Despite this, the SHC has denied Ms Bach ever claimed to be a medical professional or caused the death of a child.
In response to a 2018 article accusing Ms Bach of “playing doctor”, the SCH said: “At no time has our founder, Renee Bach, presented herself as a medical professional, experimented on or caused the death of any child.”
The organisation also stated Ms Bach only provided assistance to medical staff when asked and was only in an administrative role with SCH.
Since the allegations against Ms Bach have been brought forward, a group called No White Saviors have taken to social media to warn others about the US missionary and bring awareness to the case.
The group revealed the physical and mental injuries some of the children allegedly treated by Ms Bach had been left with.
One post showed a photo of a girl with visible scars, claiming she was the child Ms Bach wrote about treating in a blog post.
“Some of #ReneeBach‘s victims are still alive. This is Patricia, left permanently disfigured after a botched blood transfusion performed by Renee. She didn’t crossmatch the blood, because she’s not a medical professional, child had horrible reaction & now lives with these scars,” No White Saviors wrote online.
The group also shared a photo of a young boy who appeared to be disfigured.
“This is Maasai. He has been left with irreversible physical and mental disabilities because of #ReneeBach’s botched medical experimentation. Former staff and the family of Maasai report that Renee Bach was the one to treating their child at @servinghis,” the post read.
Ms Bach’s current whereabouts are unknown, with reports showing she failed to attend her court date in Jinja in March 2019.
