An American woman who set up a malnutrition clinic in Uganda to treat starving children is being sued by two African mothers who say she has caused or contributed to more than 100 babies’ deaths by giving them medical treatment with no training and despite not being a doctor.
Renee Bach, 35, is from Virginia but moved to Africa when she was a teenager to work as a missionary.
In 2009, She set up the Serving His Children clinic in Masese to treat children and babies who were close to death because of malnutrition.
But in a lawsuit filed in January at the High Court in Jinja, mothers Gimbo Zubeda and Kakai Annet allege that she caused their babies deaths and the deaths of dozens more.
Annet gave birth to a boy in 2017 but she says he was ‘snatched’ from her by Bach and the clinic.
‘My son – Elijah Benjamin would be two (2) years old today had he been alive. I delivered him at Jinja Hospital on 21 January, 2017.
Renee Bach, 35, is from Virginia but moved to Africa when she was a teenager to work as a missionary. She is shown with her adopted daughter. Bach is being sued by African mothers who say she contributed to the deaths of ‘hundreds’ of babies
‘I feel his life was snatched from my arms by the actions of Ms. Renee Bach,’ she said.
They are demanding that her facility be shut down and are asking for damages.
The women say that they brought their children to Bach’s facility under the impression that she was a medically trained professional.
They claim she gave their children aid but that despite her efforts, the children died.
Afterwards, in 2015, they say they learned Bach had never been given medical training.
Others have alleged malpractice in blog posts about the Virginian, claiming she sent children home after ‘fattening them up’ without ensuring it was safe for them.
Bach has admitted in the past that she has no medical training but claims the most she ever did to a child was give them an IV.
The allegations against the practice have been well-documented in local media since last year, when staff told local news station NBS that it had changed its practices.
In photographs shared by groups in Africa that are trying to bring her to justice, she is shown giving babies’ medical care. It is unclear what exactly she did . The organization says she never did anything beyond giving a child an IV but the mothers say differently
In their lawsuit, the women say she gave the impression she was a doctor by walking around at times wearing a stethoscope and a white coat
Bach is shown tending to another child. She said previously that she started the clinic to tackle malnutrition
In anther photo shared online by one of her critics, she is shown examining a child’s foot
But the lawsuit demands the facility be shut down entirely and says it is still accepting children for care despite being ordered to close down by The Department of Health in 2015.
It was filed by the Women’s Probono Initiative.
In a statement at the time, the group said: ‘The mothers allege that they were led to believe that Ms. Renee Bach was a “medical doctor” and that her home was a “medical facility” as she was often seen wearing a white coat, a stethoscope and often administered medications to children in her care.
Bach went to Uganda when she was 18 on a missionary trip and said she fell in love with the country
‘When their children died however, they were told that Ms. Renee has no training at all in medicine and that in 2015, the District Health Officer had closed her facility and ordered her to not offer any treatment to any child.’
One of the group’s members called it ‘unacceptable, narcissistic behavior.’
‘By doing so, they mislead unsuspecting vulnerable members of the public,’ they said.
Bach has been scrubbed from the facility’s websites and it has deleted its social media pages.
In response to a 2018 article about the allegations, the organization said: ‘At no time has our founder, Renee Bach, presented herself as a medical professional, experimented on or caused the death of any child.
‘Having been trained by medical professionals to start IVs, Ms. Bach has in the past provided assistance in such procedures when requested and currently serves in an administrative capacity and participates in fundraising for the organization.’
The organization did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com’s inquiries on Sunday.
The case is being urged on by a group called No White Saviors which has been campaigning for Bach to be shut down for months.
In an article published on Medium by one of its members last year, they described how Bach was giving children ‘oxygen’ and other medical treatment and wrote about it in now deleted blog posts.
The author, who is not named but describes themselves as a white, American volunteer, said they met Bach in 2014.
Her critics say that whenever they have written to the charity to try to shut it down, they have been accused of not understanding of appreciation Bach’s religion. She is shown in an image inside the facility
‘Initially, I admired Renee for her sacrifice and tireless commitment to children battling malnutrition.
‘It was not until January 2014 that my perspective really started to change,’ she said.
Bach has not responded to the allegations personally
She went on to describe how Mach ‘got him fat and healthy and then sent him home without so much as any consideration for the root cause of his malnutrition.’
‘There was no follow up, so he fell sick again, so sick that his body was not able to come back from it this time,’ she wrote.
Later, she learned that the woman had also been practicing medicine on babies despite not having any medical training.
‘She had medical professionals on staff but she herself, with no medical training, chose to actively treat and respond to serious medical needs of children in crisis,’ she went on.
It is unclear if she is still working at the facility or if she remains in Uganda.
Bach first went to Uganda as an 18-year-old for a 10-day missionary trip and said she fell in love with it.
She met her daughter when she was ten days old and adopted her after learning that her birth mother had died.
She founded the organization to cure malnutrition and claims online to partner with the local government to offer medical treatment.
