U.S. Missionary With No Medical Training Settles Suit Over Child Deaths At Her Center

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Renee Bach, who is 31, was sued in Ugandan civil court over the deaths of children who were treated at the critical care center she ran in Uganda. She has left Uganda and is now living in the U.S.

Julia Rendleman/for NPR

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Julia Rendleman/for NPR

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Primah Kwagala, a Ugandan attorney, filed suit against Bach on behalf of two mothers of children who died after being cared for by Bach’s charity.

Majungu Eva/evashots_Photography

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Majungu Eva/evashots_Photography

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In an NPR report on Bach’s case published in August 2019, experts on malnutrition told NPR that children in this condition are so fragile that unless a health provider knows exactly what he or she is doing, it is actually safer to do nothing. Even actions as simple as putting the child on an IV to hydrate them can trigger a heart attack if the sodium and potassium content isn’t continually adjusted to match the child’s fluctuating levels. And under both international health guidelines and Ugandan law such children must be treated at an advanced medical facility. Yet for a time, not only was Bach’s treatment center unlicensed, it did not employ a single doctor.

As part of the lawsuit several former volunteers and staffers at the treatment centers filed affidavits describing incidents during which they witnessed Bach making medical decisions on behalf of children at the center and performing medical procedures, including blood transfusions — often without supervision. In an interview with NPR for the August 2019 report, Bach disputed some of those accounts — stating that while she did at times perform some procedures «without a medical professional standing right next to me … it was always under the request and direction of a medical professional.

A court filing by Ugandan attorney Primah Kwagala includes excerpts from Renee Bach’s blog as well as from a blog posted by a supporter of her charity who had visited and taken photos. This page above includes a photograph of Bach inserting an IV catheter into the vein of a severely malnourished child.

Jan. 21, 2019, court filing by complainants suing Renee Bach in the High Court of Uganda in Jinja

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Jan. 21, 2019, court filing by complainants suing Renee Bach in the High Court of Uganda in Jinja

The annual death rates at the center — around 20% in 2011 and down to 10% by 2013 — were at levels that would raise red flags by the standards used to judge international charities, according to Saul Guerrero, who specializes in childhood severe acute malnutrition at UNICEF. Over the five-year period from 2010 to 2015, Bach says the center took in 940 children, of whom 105 died.

In 2015 Ugandan authorities shut down the center for operating without the required license. A few years later, Uganda’s government authorized Bach to reopen her center, this time in direct partnership with a government health center in a different district. At the time Serving His Children said Bach would no longer be involved in medical care.

Bach’s attorney, David Gibbs, said the employees at that center have now «moved on in their professional careers, and the rural communities [with whom Serving His Children partnered] continue to equip families and strive to prevent malnutrition.

Kwagala, the attorney for the mothers in the civil suit, says she has no plans to sue on behalf of additional families whose children died at Serving His Children’s center. However, the American and Ugandan members of an advocacy group called No White Saviors, who helped connect the mothers to Kwagala, say they are working to mount additional cases. An attorney engaged by the group, Robert Okot, told NPR he would be announcing legal action by several families this coming Monday.