Piero Corti

After Milan was bombed, his father sent Piero and his brother Giovanni to check their apartment there, and even in that circumstance the teenager showed a clinical gaze at death.

Corti, who was in love with her sister Manuela, a famous dancer, despite the age gap, was very close to that girl and when he discovered that she was ill, he promised he would become a doctor in Africa for her and he would work for two.

[4] After graduating, he followed the advice of a friend, Agatha Sidlauskas, a psychologist whom he met in Italy through her collaboration with Father Agostino Gemelli,[5] and he moved to Canada, where he specialized in radiology, neuropsychiatry and pediatrics at Hôpital Sainte Justine pour les enfants in Montreal.

There, during his studies, he met another Canadian colleague who was specializing in surgery, Lucille Teasdale, who had wanted to be a doctor to fight injustice since she was a child[6] and she seemed perfect to Corti for his future projects.

On 1 May 1961 Piero and Lucille landed in Entebbe, capital of the British protectorate of Uganda, where brother Toni Biasin, a Combonian missionary, was waiting for them to bring them to Kampala, the city where the surgeon Denis Burkitt operated.

[12] In that period very important doctors passed by St. Mary's Hospital, such as Dr Arshad Warley, South African pediatrician and professor at Makerere University.

[22] In 1982, Corti had a mild heart attack and during his convalescence he met a young black doctor Matthew Lukwiya, who had graduated from Makerere University and was a specialist in the diagnosis and treatment of childhood cancers.

Many people, terrified, went to shamans who, with their rites, worsened the patients,[26] forced to go urgently to the hospital, which, despite difficulties to find equipments, continued to be expanded with new labs, a physiotherapy department and a library.

[28] On 7 April 1987 Piero gathered Acholi elders to decide on the future of the hospital and they suggested a temporary closure,[29] which was realized after Matthew's kidnapping by Upda troops.

[33] In 1996 a tragic event marked Corti's life: on 1 August, while he was being awarded membership of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, Lucille died after many years of illness and suffering.

[34] Corti, left alone, hoped for Matthew's help, but unfortunately, his best doctor in Lacor Hospital and intimate friend died because of pulmonary haemorrhage due to Ebola virus on 5 December 2000.