Prolific She Cranes Netball team player, Shaffie Nalwanja has undergone a successful knee operation at CorSU hospital Entebbe, thanks to a donation from telecom giants MTN after years of playing through a pain barrier at the highest levels of the sport for club and country.
The operation was done on Friday evening and was successful and according to the doctors. Her recovery will not take so long as long as she follows all the instructions given to her, sources privy to the matter say.
Although Nalwanja got a knee injury while on national duty few years back, she had not received proper attention until now. Close examination of her knee revealed that she either required surgery for a quick fix or to have lengthy rehabilitation process; she has opted for the first route.
Described by some as being to the Uganda Netball She Cranes team what Saliva is to the tongue, Shaffie Nalwanja is one of the most swift and intelligent defenders to have played for the national team.
The eldest child in a family of four, Nalwanja is a born leader and protector on and off the netball court even though she only started playing netball in 2015 during her A-levels at Exodus College Wakiso.
Born November 16, 1998, she played for the national Under-21 team in 2016 and in 2018, she was on Uganda’s combined university team that won the World University Championships, defeating the favorites South Africa in the final.
She is a household name in Ugandan netball and in the corridors of the global sport as she was among the best Wing Defenders at the recent Netball World Cup.
Nalwanja, who featured in all eight games Uganda competed in at the World Cu 2023, put in great shift for the She Cranes as Uganda beat Wales 73-56 to enable Uganda register its best ever fifth place finish at the highest event in world netball.
Speaking after the match, Nalwanja said: “I think playing the first time in defence, I haven’t been so bad. I have been consistent since the first game and I have been waiting for this chance to be Player of the Match. Being the Player of the Match against a very good team like Wales feels really great. So far it has not been so bad.””
Sources say that she featured in the Commonwealth Games 2022 and Netball world cup 2023 playing though pain with that knee injury.
While Hon. Babirye Kityo Sarah was still at the helm of Uganda Netball Federation, sources say she lobbied financers to fund Nalwanja’s much needed surgery and this effort yielded fruit when MTN Uganda settled the medical bills totaling Ugx 10.8 million.
Her recovery is likely to take between six months and a year according to doctors and Nalwanja will return as an even physically better netball player.
