“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
These timeless words from Mother Teresa of Calcutta sink deep for those who believe in the power of compassion—people like Dr. Antonio Orlando. For nearly three decades, this compassionate consultant and plastic surgeon has not only healed bodies but also touched lives. He has proved that true impact lies not in grandeur but in dedication. Beyond borders and expectations, his calling attests to what happens when skill meets the heart.
In 2023, Dr. Orlando brought this act of love and care to St. Mary’s Hospital Lacor in northern Uganda, a region where access to specialized surgical care is scarce. But he didn’t come alone; alongside him was a team of five, and together, they launched the first Reconstructive Surgical Camp, offering free surgeries to patients burdened by severe burns, broken jaws, and joint deformities.
By the end of that camp, they gifted 58 people with not just regained mobility and smiles—they’d reclaimed hope.
Dr. Orlando’s team with our Staff on the last day of the camp
This year, Dr. Orlando returned to Lacor with a revamped vision and a larger team of eight, and this time, the mission was dual: to heal and empower.
To realize the gold of the mission, in his team of eight, he had specialists—three consultant surgeons including burn surgeons, a pediatric anesthetist, and nurses from as far as Bristol—who worked shoulder-to-shoulder with our staff who learnt from the best.
“Our ambition isn’t just to count patients we treat,” he explained. “We want to make patient care improvements with the local people and leave behind a legacy of knowledge that will shine forth even when we are not here.” He said.
Knowledge sharing at the Emergency department
From the emergency unit to the burns unit to Surgery I and II, it was all teaching and learning—scrub nurse demonstrating sterile techniques, a consultant surgeon guiding our surgeons through delicate incisions.
Together, they performed 35 complex surgeries, from reconstructing disfigured faces to restoring movement in frozen joints
However, there were challenges as Dr. Orlando shared the harsh truth of many patients coming late to the hospital sighting burns that have fused skin into crippling scars, fractures left untreated for years, “Even with decades of experience, some cases break your heart,” he admitted.
Yet he marveled at how our hospital. “Tackle much more complex cases with much less low resources. From birth anomalies to traumatic injuries—It’s both humbling and inspiring.”
One moment stood out and amazed Dr. Orlando when he peered into an operating theater where Dr. Emmanuel Makai was doing a corrective surgery on a two-day-old baby with anorectal malformation—a rare congenital defect requiring urgent, meticulous surgery.
“I’m not a pediatric surgeon,” Dr. Orlando confessed later. “But watching Dr. Makai work—the precision, the calm—it was breathtaking. This is what collaboration looks like: sharing skills, trusting local expertise, and learning from one another.”
Talking burns at Burns Unit
As the 2025 camp concluded on March 28, Dr. Orlando shared his vision for the future with renewed commitment. He pledged to return annually with global specialists to perform life-changing surgeries while focusing on long-term sustainability—training local staff to hone their skills and ensuring the facility’s independence.
For many individuals who would never have been able to afford these procedures, it would have meant enduring a lifetime of pain, stigma, or disability. The reconstructive surgical camp demonstrated that global health equity is not just a utopian dream. It is achieved through everyday actions: showing up, sharing knowledge, and genuinely caring for others.
As Mother Teresa’s words remind us, greatness lies not in grand gestures but in small acts of love repeated daily. At Lacor Hospital, those acts are stitching wounds, teaching techniques, and rebuilding futures—one patient, one surgeon, one lesson at a time.
