BRUCKER SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM: Expanding Rehabilitation Services Across Africa

The African continent is home to an excess of 1.5 billion people, and according to WHO Regional Office for Africa, a minimum of 63% of people who need rehabilitation services, are not recieving the requisite care. The reason for this lack of care is multifaceted, however fundamentally, the leading reasons may be summarised as: a lack of skills, facilities, and policy related to rehabilitation service provision.
Traditionally, such impediments seemed insurmountable, despite evidence of necessity for the comprehensive development of rehabilitation services continentally as early as 1985. Uugumbo Medical, a private company based in Namibia, born out of personal tragedy, in 2013 set out to interrogate the mismatch between the undeniable demand for rehabilitation in Africa, and the void where supply ought to have been.
That journey, 12 years ago, has resulted in the planning and development of the Uugumbo Trauma Rehabilitation Center ('UTRC'), an affordable state-of-the-art rehabilitation facility, designed and to be constructed to CARF standards, as the first of several centers intended to meet the rehabilitative demands of the African continent. In building the concept of the UTRC, engaging financiers, developing corporate structuring, navigating the existing legislative frameworks and planning their reformation, a multitude of lessons have been learned, which shall inform the intended expansion of the 'Uugumbo' project to continental Africa. ***Each year, the ACRM International Interdisciplinary Special Interest Group (I-ISIG) sponsors the Brucker International Symposium held during the ACRM Annual Fall Conference & EXPO. This signature event was established in 2008 in memory of Dr. Bernard (Bernie) Brucker: , a long-standing ACRM member, who died unexpectedly that year. Originally established as a lecture luncheon, the event has become a popular ACRM tradition and continues today as a very SPECIAL symposium.