Teasdale, Lucille, 1929-1996 : Lucille Teasdale, a surgeon, was born in Montreal on January 30, 1929, daughter of René Teasdale, grocer, and of Juliette Sanscartier. In 1950, she enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Montreal and received her medical degree in 1955. She then continued her training and did six years of an internship in surgery at Maisonneuve Hospital, Hotel Dieu Hospital and, finally at Ste. Justine children's hospital, in Montreal, under the supervision of Dr. Pierre-Paul Collin. She met Piero Corti, originally from Besana Brianza, Italy, who had just completed his specialty in pediatrics at Ste. Justine hospital.
To obtain her degree in surgery, Lucille Teasdale needed to do a residency abroad, and thus went to Marseille in September 1960. There she met Piero Corti again, who had returned to Italy after completing his pediatrics specialty in Montreal. He invited her to accompany him to Uganda to practice medecine. In December of that year, Lucille met Piero Corti's family and agreed to accompany him to Uganda, but only for a few months. The couple arrived on May 1, 1961, in Entebbe and then went to Gulu, where there was only a simple dispensary operated by a few Comboni missionaries, originally from Verona, who worked as nurses and midwives.
The Teasdale-Corti couple was married in the hospital chapel December 5 1961. Since Lucille had decided to follow Piero, she did not complete her residency in surgery and did not receive her surgical degree. St. Mary's-Lacor Hospital in Gulu became a university hospital over the years, and Lucille Teasdale was one of the most experienced surgeons in Uganda and Eastern Africa. She also provided out-patient service and was responsible for teaching surgery and training Ugandan interns at Makarere University.
In 1979, the liberation war began in Uganda and a long period of civil war ensued throughout the country. St. Mary's-Lacor Hospital was attacked and on several occasions provided refuge for people displaced by rebellions. The hospital even had to close its doors for six weeks in 1989 and a number of physicians and nurses fled. Throughout this time, Lucille operates on victims of bullet wounds. In 1985, she learned that she had AIDS. She presumably contracted the disease in 1979, during one of her many surgical operations. Her illness forced her to reduce her surgical duties but she continued to see patients actively at the out-patient clinic and was responsible for the tuberculosis wing opened in 1993, where 60% of patients were HIV-positive.
Lucille Teasdale died August 1 1996, in Italy, where she had gone with her husband to receive emergency care for her illness. A funeral service was held in Italy and a second one in Gulu, on August 16 (local rebellions stopped for that day, as Uganda was in a perpetual state of civil war). She was buried on the grounds of St. Mary's-Lacor Hospital after lying in state for four days and being visited by thousands of people.
Lucille Teasdale and Piero Conti had one daughter, Dominique. She lives in Milan, Italy, where she was sent for schooling at the age of nine, in view of the difficulties in Uganda at the time. Dominique Corti also became a physician and is responsible for the Lucille Teasdale and Piero Corti Foundation, in Milan, Italy. The Foundation, which has the mandate among other things to ensure the survival of the St. Mary's-Lacor Hospital, also has a branch in Montreal (http://www.lhospital.org), founded by Lise and Monique Teasdale, Lucille's sisters.
Lucille Teasdale, like Piero Corti, received numerous national and international awards, as well as recognition by their respective countries of their great courage and determination in carrying out their humanitarian work in Uganda.
Corti, Piero, 1925-2003 : Piero Corti, physician, was born in Besana Brianza, Italy, September 16 1925, the son of Mario Corti, industrialist, and Irma Bestetti. He studied at Collegio San Carlo, in Milan. In 1955, he went to Montreal to do a specialty in pediatrics at Ste. Justine Hospital for children, where he met Lucille Teasdale. Upon his return to Italy in 1958, he decided to become a missionary in Uganda and to found a hospital there. He shared his plans with Lucille, who was in Marseille at the time for a residency in surgery. He convinced her to drop her residency and follow him to Africa, where they were married December 5 1961.
Dr. Piero Corti was responsible for medical and radiology activities at St. Mary's-Lacor Hospital, in Gulu, Uganda. He was also the hospital administrator and medical director. The hospital became a recognized university centre in Africa and was visited by numerous international dignitaries and diplomats. Since 1988, Piero Corti has often been asked to serve as an expert advisor to coordinate health training projects for the Italian ministry of foreign affairs. In 1989, the hospital opened a new operating facility with three operating rooms where Lucille Teasdale performed surgery. An out-patient wing was opened on May 1, 1995, by the President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni. Now, the hospital has almost 500 beds and is designated as a research center in the treatment and prevention of AIDS by the World Health Organization.
After the death of Dr. Lucille Teasdale in 1996, Dr. Corti continued his activities at St. Mary's-Lacor Hospital in Gulu now managed by Africans. Like his wife, Lucille Teasdale, Piero Corti has been awarded numerous national and international honorary distinctions for his work in Africa. In addition to other prestigious awards the couple received for the hospital, they received the Sasakawa Award of the World Health Organization for their preventative health care initiatives, in 1986; and the Feltrinelli award of the Academia Nazionale dei Lincei (National Academy of Lynx), an Italian academy founded in 1603 of which Galileo is one of its most illustrious members. It was awarded for their "exceptional initiative of high moral and humanitarian value," in 1995. The award included 00,000 in prize money.
Dr. Corti died April 20 2003, in Italy, after few months of cancer. He was buried on the grounds of St. Mary's-Lacor Hospital beside Dr. Lucille Teasdale and Dr. Matthew Lukwiya after having been striked with the Ebola virus in February 2001.
