A Unique Prescription: Rose Busingye's Inspiring Approach to HIV/AIDS Care

Several dozen undergraduates gathered earlier this week for a unique conversation with Rose Busingye , the founder of Meeting Point International in Kampala, Uganda. Busingye works with thousands of adults and children infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS. Emily Mediate 15, who has been one of the organizers of the undergraduate Human Dignity and Human Development series, reports.

The greatest need of a human being is the need of belonging.

Rose Busingye sits quietly as she shares these words with the audience. We are all captured by her spirit—by the sincerity in both her words and composure. Listening in on the conversation with Rose is a precious opportunity to hear human dignity come to life.

For Rose, a Ugandan nurse who spent a few days recently with the Kellogg Institute community, meeting her patients physical needs alone is insufficient for holistic healing. Yet Rose does not offer a model for patient-centered treatment or advocate specifically for palliative care or propose a curriculum for multi-dimensional counseling.

Rather, her mission of care is centered on a singular idea: human beings have infinite value. How, I thought, can she live out this idea, which is so difficult to sustain in day-to-day life?

The answer is that it is a discovery and a journey. Rose operates under this framework and focuses every individual interaction towards this belief.

If a person with a headache comes in to the doctor, he wants to be treated as a person with a head, not just this thing who is having head pain. You cannot treat only the persons body, but all of the other parts which are there, she says.

Our joy is born out of an awareness that we are loved, and this dignity leads to an experience of joy that is a process of walking with one another.

While the idea may seem simple, it is far from easy as a solution for patient care. The process of walking with each other and educating each other to understand one anothers value is difficult and takes time.

I have been working at it since 1992, Rose laughs. As we journeyed, though, we all began to look at ourselves in another way, slowly by slowly.

A journey of self-discovery and dignity

She founded Meeting Point International in 2003 after ten years of home visits to patients. Now, the organization serves 5,000 men, women, and children, 2,300 of whom are sick. Meeting Point International also runs a welcoming house, the home of more than 50 abandoned children. Together, all of the members are dedicated to fulfilling the idea that if every person could realize their value and be looked at with value, things would change. 

Rose talks more about how this self-realization of worth happens by describing the process as falling in love. Slowly, she says, she has seen herself and others begin to acknowledge their worth by continually discovering themselves and acting as though they valued themselves: cleaning themselves, taking necessary medications, and caring for others.