Clinic memorializing Arlington Heights deacon to open soon in Uganda

The day of the funeral of beloved Deacon Patrick Pierce Sheehan, 82, of St. James Catholic Church in Arlington Heights, his close friend and colleague Deacon Don Grossnickle received an urgent call requesting assistance for impoverished women in Uganda.

A year later, a maternity and pediatric clinic in Sheehan’s name is soon to open its doors in Kasese, a remote community in Uganda.

The call for assistance came from Arlington Heights charity, the Microfinance Alliance Africa Projects (MAAP) Foundation, which had received an appeal from a struggling local Catholic clinic in the Kasese Diocese, St. Philomena parish.

St. Philomena had been struggling with overcrowding and understaffing, limited equipment and expended medical supplies. The situation was the very kind Deacon Sheehan would dedicate his time to address, making it the perfect opportunity to complete the project in his name, according to Deacon Grossnickle.

Only 65% of births in Uganda involve a skilled birth attendant, and for every 100,000 births, 435 women die due to complications from having an unattended birth, according to the National Institutes of Health.

“We have little clinics that are connected to a Catholic Parish, and mothers and babies come there with no money, and we try to make sure that they are not turned away,” Deacon Grossnickle explained. “Our ministry is a medical mission for mothers and babies who are unable to pay for the delivery of a baby, for instance, or malaria.”

Deacon Sheehan, his wife Midge and Deacon Grossnickle of Our Lady of the Wayside in Arlington Heights spent over a decade supporting Deacon Grossnickle’s ministry work with mothers and babies in Uganda through MAAP.

For over 30 years, Deacon Sheehan taught in the Chicago Public School system, mostly at Gary School. Helping children was always part of his life's work.

Deacon Sheehan’s legacy clinic, soon to be named the Deacon Pierce Sheehan Memorial Maternity and Pediatric Clinic, is a product of various community donors from St. James and the Our Lady of the Wayside parishes, and kick-started by the goodwill of fifth graders from Mt. Prospect’s St. Raymond School, which Deacon Sheehan and his wife donated to.

Last year, the students raised the initial $5,000 for the campaign. A total of $35,000 was raised with the help of additional donors, according to Deacon Grossnickle.

The fifth graders also raised an additional $5,000 for the construction of a pig farm that would provide sustainable income for the new clinic to continue running, Deacon Grossnickle said.

The students each brought in $10 to contribute to the building of the farm, according to Marketing and Enrollment representative Nadine Scheller.

“They learned about Uganda, the villages, and collected money. They got really behind it because they could wrap their head around the idea of the farm,” Scheller said.

Solar lighting and beds for the clinic were donated earlier this week by the Deacons of the Archdiocese of Chicago. There is no electricity in this remote mountainous region, so the panels will be the main source of power.

Once the construction for the pig farm is completed, projected for next month, the clinic will open. Along with saving lives, the clinic will carry on Deacon Sheehan’s memory, Deacon Grossnickle said.

“The family and friends of Deacon [Sheehan] are memorializing him,” Deacon Grossnickle said. “Thousands of women and children there in Uganda will know about him through the sign.”