Dr. Nakato uses needles to heal

Sharp needles stare at me, and I shiver in for a while. “This won’t hurt,” says Dr. Nakato Mubanda, acupuncturist. “They will just feel like little mosquito bites.” The first needle enters the skin of my forefinger. At that very instant, I feel a slight electric shock, and my finger jerks.

“That’s your own body’s electrical charge,” says Dr. Nakato, calming my fears of this strange reaction. I can tell that she is searching for specific points on my body into which to place the shringe. Her soft fingers reach my ear, and she places a number of needles onto the ear. I have a phobia for injection, and I am sweating profusely at this point. This takes a number of seconds. There is no pain, and so I relax. Dr. Nakato has been practicing acupuncture in Uganda for the last nine months with much success. She has received many patients for whom other methods of medical treatment had failed.

“I have received all kinds of patients,” she said. “Thy included ministers, MPs, villagers and students, among others. They all come to me because the medications they have been taking have not been working well for them. They come with various illness: high blood pressure, diabetes, stress, addiction and musculoskeletal disorders, amongothers.”

Dr. Nakato did not have an easy time setting up her practice. She had been in the US for 28 years. For some reasons, she decided to dedicate her life to helping people in Uganda through practicing acupuncture.

When she returned, she was shocked to learn that there was no Ugandan practicing acupuncture. Many of her first patients seemed reluctant to try out treatment that did not distribute tablets.
“Ugandans first response was to wonder as to how this form of treatment would work when it offers no medication. They were too accustomed to medication, which they expected me to apply on them.” adds Dr. Nakato. “I told them that acupuncture doesn’t use medicine, but it uses the body’s own immune system to heal the illness.”

She adds that in acupuncture, it is the body’s own electrical life force and energy which heals. After a while, Ugandans began to accept acupuncture as an effective alternative treatment. Today, Dr. Nakato receives as many as six patients a day at her clinic at Kati house, House of Health, on Buganda road.

“I do not want to take on more than six patients a day.” This is because I need to give each patient as much attention and care as I can,” says Nakato. Many patients have to be put on the waiting list. She feels that making money should not compromise her practice.

Dr. Nakato gives me a deeper understanding of acupuncture. Acupuncture is an essential part of oriental medicine, a comprehensive system of health-care with a cautious clinical history, which is more than 5,000 years old.
The ancient Chinese recognised a vital energy behind all forms and life processes. They called the energy qi. In developing an understanding of the prevention and cure of diseases, these healing practitioners discovered that the energy flows through specific pathways on the surface of the body called meridians. Each pathway is associated with the particular physiological system and internal organ. Disease is considered to arise due to a deficiency or imbalance of energy in the meridians and their associated physiological systems and internal organs.

“For acupuncture to work,” she said, “The patient has to be willing to take the necessary changes in their lives. They have to be wiling to change their diet, exercise and identify the things that trouble them, or cause them stress. They have to be disciplined. If a patient is overweight, they cannot expect acupuncture to work if they do not change their eating habits besides doing exercises.” Acupuncture helps in healing various illnesses and disorders: gastrointestinal, urogential, reproductive and gynecological, respiratory, musculoskeletal, neurological/nervous system, emotional and psychological, circulatory, addictive, EENT, immunological, dermatological disorders, among many others.

The amazing thing about acupuncture is that it heals the body by boosting its own immune system; that we have our own medicine within our own bodies.

Dr. Nakto’s patients receive treatment for one hour, which includes consultation, education, and treatment. For most patients, it takes three months of treatment to heal. For some, one or two sessions are enough to bring about relief.

Dr. Nakato was born in Uganda. She studied in schools in Ugandan for some time. She was in Kitante primary school for five years. Later she left the country for the US because of the political instability during Idi Amin’s regime.

Her father, Alfred Ssalongo Mubanda, worked as permanent secretary in Amin’s regime before fleeing to exile in the US, where he worked for the UN.
Museveni later called him back to Uganda.

Dr. Nakato studied in New York, Seattle and Atlanta. She has a certificate in massage therapy, a bachelor of science in nutrition, a masters in acupuncture, and a doctorate in Chiropractic. The doctor paints a bleak picture of Uganda’s future health. “I think Uganda will be in a big crisis in the near future,” she says.

“Ugandans are drinking too much, and have bad feeding habits. These things are going to cause them all kinds of health complications, and the country already has an addiction problem. They must change their lifestyles before its too late.”