of Quebec) 1995 Honorary Fellow (The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada) 1995 Antonio Feltrinelli Prize (Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei Rome) 1996 Doctorate Honoris Causa (University of Montreal) 2000 A commemorative stamp is issued within the Millennium Collection (Canada Post) Lucille Teasdale-Corti CM GOQ (January 30, 1929 – August 1, 1996) was a Canadian physician and pediatric surgeon, who worked in Uganda from 1961 until her death in 1996.

Despite considerable hardship, including civil war and the AIDS epidemic, she cofounded with her husband a university hospital in the north of Uganda.

[1] During the internship, she met an Italian doctor, Piero Corti, who carried out two residencies (1955/56 and 1957/58) at Sainte Justine Hospital during his postgraduate training in Pediatrics at Pavia University (Italy).

Wanting an opportunity to complete her final period of residency abroad, she applied to several hospitals in the United States but was turned down.

In 1960 Lucille Teasdale traveled to France to carry out her final internship year at the Hôpital de la Conception in Marseille.

After visiting several hopeful sites in Africa and India, Piero Corti had chosen to work from a small 30-bed mission hospital near Gulu (Northern Uganda).

Upon arrival in Uganda in 1961,[4] Lucille was required to obtain a license to practice as a doctor but learned she would first have to complete two months of internship.

On 9 October 1962, Uganda achieved independence and on 17 November 1962, Lucille gave birth to her only child, daughter Dominique, whom locals named Atim ("born far from home" in Acholi).

At the time, the hospital was staffed by Italian Comboni nuns who had obtained degrees in nursing and midwifery in the UK (as required by the British Protectorate in Uganda) and locals trained "on the job."

In 1972, Amin expelled 60,000 Asians whose ancestors had settled in Uganda during colonial times, and handed their businesses and properties to his supporters.

They decided to remain and, with Piero’s family in Italy, organized the support group that began sending several containers a year with everything from drugs to equipment to used clothes.

Lucille, whose only condition upon marrying Piero had been that their family would never be separated, stated that sending her daughter away was the biggest sacrifice she ever made.

The hospital was repeatedly ransacked by the remnants of Idi Amin’s disbanded army fleeing from the advancing Tanzanian troops.

While Lucille was operating on a wounded soldier, Piero suffered a punctured eardrum because of a blow to the ear and was narrowly missed by machine gun fire during one confrontation with marauders.

1980 – After several interim and two increasingly turbulent and brief provisional governments, Milton Obote returned to power as president of Uganda.

The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered significant support to Lacor through specialists to train the interns, as well as facilities and equipment.

The very first group of interns included Dr. Matthew Luwkiya (who would soon become the hospital’s deputy superintendent and who would die a hero’s death by sacrificing his life, together with twelve other staff members during the 2000 Ebola outbreak), Dr. Isaac Ezati (who would take over as surgeon at Lacor before moving to Mulago National Referral Hospital and then to the Ministry of Health; he remains on Lacor’s Board of Governors).

In 1986, after the second ousting of Milton Obote, a weak coalition governed until the end of the year, when Yoweri Museveni’s NRA rebellion took power.

After a series of spectacular victories against what was perceived as the occupying army, she led her forces towards Kampala, garnering much support from other ethnic groups that also had grievances with the Museveni government.

Most of the staff lived within the hospital compound with their families for security, and went to work at night in civilian clothing to avoid being recognised and kidnapped in case of a rebel raid.

Dr. Matthew, who had moved to the Cortis’ house to stop a possible rebel incursion before it reached the other doctors’ residences, offered himself as the person in charge of the hospital, and was taken away with other staff.

However, the local elders reacted to this news, stating that the hospital was the only thing left to them: they would not accept its closure and would try to convince the rebels not to enter again.

Despite her failing health, she continued to work, especially in Lacor’s adult outpatient and AIDS/TB department, and gradually relinquished operations to the Ugandan doctors she had trained.

She suffered from a series of complications, from the ever-present oral candidiasis that made eating difficult, to severe conditions like Addison’s Disease and Pneumocystis Carinii pleumonia, which caused Piero to rush her to London then to Milano to overcome the crises.