Piero Corti

Piero Corti(Besana in Brianza , 16 settembre 1925 – Milano , 2 aprile 2003),was an italian doctor who chose to work in a hospital in Uganda most of his lifetime.

Bigraphy Piero Corti was born in Besana in Brianza on the 16th sectember 1925. Brother of Eugenio, a famous writer and essayist, 4 years elder than him, Piero grew up in a relatively wealthy family, because it had performed in the silk tradeat first and then it had invested in the building field. At the age of 7 a bad pneumonia risked to kill him because of his poor health, so he was sent by his parents in a college in Stresa,on the Maggiore lake,with his brothers,as wealthy families used to do at that time. He came back to Besana during theSecond World War. His deep Christian belief and his unselfish soul developed in him the desire to be a doctor, and in particular a doctor in foreign lands. Despite his friends skepticism, Piero enrolled the school Medicine and Surgery at Milan University, where he graduated. There, in Milan, he met a young girl, Benedetta Bianchi Porro, who was studying medicine to live her life in Africa as a missionery. After the graduation, in 1955, he moved to Canada, where he got the specializations in radiology, neuropsychiatry and pediatrics at Hôpital Sainte Justine pour les enfants inMontreal. There, during his studies, he met another canadian colleague who was specializing in surgery,Lucille Teasdale, excellent doctor, fated to be his partner for life. After several journeys toIndia and Africa, searching for a place where he could realize his dream, Piero stopped in Uganda , near the city of Gulu, where combonians fathershad built some dispensaries. On the 1st May 1961 Piero e Lucille landed together in Entebbe, capital city of Uganda as a British protectorate. They settled down in Lacor, a small village 11 km far from Gulu. land of the acoli tribe. In the dispensary, ruled by combonians sisters, Lucille began to work as a surgeon while her boyfriend Piero was an anesthetist , a radiologist and a manager. They got married in the chapel of little hospital on the 5th December 1961 and on November 1962 Lucille gave birth to their daughter Dominique. As well as the ordinary work and the sanitary business , there was the effort to find fundings for the hospital. Piero started an epistolary correspondance with many people, doing several journeys to Europe; he was often in Italy in order to achieve money medical equipment. On October 1962, almost one year later their arrival in Uganda, the former British protectorate reached the indipendence; there were years of political clashes with the windward of dictators like Milton Oboteand Amin Dada, that caused violent collisions between Uganda Army and military troops of the near Tanzania. The hospital, which was in the middle of the war outbreak , has been raid several times. Despite difficulties, doctor Corti's work kept on well; his wife Lucille was defacto a war surgeon in that period. At the end of 60s the little hospital was enlarged and modernized, new divisions were set up with two theaters, new doctors came from Entebbe and even from Italy, a nursery school was opened. In 1982, Piero had a weak heart attack and durinf his convalescence he met a young black doctor Matthew Lukuwya, who graduated at Makerere University and was specialized in the diagnosis and the treatment of childhood cancers. He was as well an expert of AIDS, a disease which was spreading quickly in Uganda and in other parts of Africa. Matthew became Piero's best colleague, working hard and very close to him and Lucille. On the 2nd August 1996, after being awarded member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, Lucille died of AIDS contracted during an operation, after many years of illness and sufferings. Piero, left alone, hoped in Matthew's help, but unfortunately, even his best doctor in Lacor Hospital died because of pulmonary haemorrhage due to Ebola. It was December the 5th, 2000. Doctor Corti kept his struggle for St. Mary Hospital, that today counts over 100.000 patiens every year and has been chosen to represent the battle against AIDS in Africa. After many operations to the coronary arteries, Piero died on the 2nd April 2003 in Milan because of a pancreas cancer. He was 77 and he had spent 42 years of his life as a missionery in Africa.