Emmanuel Amey Ojara

Emmanuel Amey Ojara was a medical doctor, surgeon, and oncologist in East Africa. At the time of his death, he was a senior lecturer at the University of Nairobi, School of Medicine.

Background

Ojara was born to Simeon Oyoo and Yudia Akidi Oyoo at Layibi Village, Gulu District, approximately, by road, southwest of the central business district of Gulu, the largest city in the Northern Region of Uganda.

After attending primary school locally, he entered Gulu Junior School and in 1960, transferred to Samuel Baker Secondary School. He completed both his O-Level and A-Level studies at this school, graduating in 1965. In 1966, he was admitted to the Makerere University School of Medicine, the oldest medical school in Uganda. In 1971, he graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degree. Following one year of internship and another year of practice as a medical officer, he was accepted into the postgraduate Master of Medicine program, a collaborative undertaking between Makerere University and the Mulago National Referral Hospital. In 1976, he was awarded a Master of Medicine in Surgery degree.

Following his first degree, he worked as an intern at Mulago Hospital from 1971 until 1972. He then worked as a medical officer for the Uganda Ministry of Health, stationed at Butabika Hospital in Kampala, from 1972 until 1973. In 1973, when he entered the Master of Medicine in Surgery program, Makerere University appointed him an assistant lecturer, a title he carried until his graduation in 1976, when he was promoted to lecturer.
In 1977, at the height of Idi Amin's brutality, Ojara and his family fled to neighbouring Kenya. He was appointed lecturer at the University of Nairobi School of Medicine and registrar at Kenyatta National Hospital, the teaching hospital of the medical school. At the time of his death, he had been promoted to senior lecturer at the medical school and had begun a research towards a cure for cancer. His research interests centred around intestinal cancer.

In 1968, while in his third year of medical school, he married Agnes Waithera who was a Bachelor of Education student at Makerere. Together, they were the parents of three sons and one daughter. He was a member of Uganda People's Congress political party and chairman of the UPC Kenya Chapter. Ojara died at Nairobi Hospital, a private medical facility in Nairobi, after a series of organ failures ending in cardiac arrest. He was 43 years old.