Amazing things happen when we all do our part... I could hardly believe that I was finally in Ghana. It had been twenty-two years since I last walked on the dusty roads in my homeland. As I drove through the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, I had that same hard-to-put-into-words feeling as I had riding through much of the Capital city, Accra, for the first time. It was a feeling of awe mixed with sadness. The awe came from the beauty of the people walking around and the hope I could see in their eyes as they walked around large medical building structures that stood three or four stories tall. The sadness came from the condition of the buildings and the grounds outside looked run down and unkempt. My prayer and hope was that the inside was in a better state than the outside presented. Everyone I met at Korle Bu told me about what a beautiful and impressive place the campus used to be. I understand that for decades after the Medical Center was constructed in the 1920's, it was one of the finest places to receive medical care in all of West Africa. Unfortunately, due to lack of maintenance and shifts in government since independence in 1957, the place now stands in shambles. The Medical Block where adult patients would be admitted for inpatient care even got so run down, that the doctors and nurses refused to work there due to unsafe conditions. Now, the amount of money and resources needed to update the whole campus is overwhelming the system.
As a result, a heavy shadow of despair hangs over the medical center. Even in the midst of what seems like a hopeless situation, the dedicated staff of doctors and nurses and others turned my impressions of Korle Bu around. They made the place alive with help and hope. They greeted me and made me feel very much at home during the week that I was on campus (Nov 11-15, 2002). I was able to observe in the Outpatient Department (OPD) clinic and talk to a few patients in the Diabetes Clinic about their daily control of blood sugars. I learned about what amazing efforts the diabetes associations in Ghana are making to prevent complications at the Nov. 14 World Diabetes Day conference at the Accra Art Center. I saw that from the patients to the medical staff to the national directors to international supporters, that everyone has a part to play. There was even time to catch a glimpse of the children's health program at the Princess Marie Louis Children's Hospital across town. The smiling, brown-skinned babies warmed my heart as they received their Vitamin A supplement along with well-child immunizations. The tears of the little ones with malnutrition and HIV/AIDS brought tears to my eyes as they sat helpless in their cribs. There is so much to be done to help those children who are already sick to get better and to keep the healthy ones from ever getting sick.
My time at Korle Bu has made me realize all that I take for granted in the States. My heart yearns for progress for my homeland. Doctors and nurses there do so much with a fraction of what we take for granted every day. The Korle Bu Diabetes Clinic is no exception. With only two or so prep nurses, two consultation nurses and one doctor, they see 80-100 patients every day, plus make rounds to those diabetics that are in the hospital wards. Patients have to arrive around 6 a.m. to wait for their appointment time to come between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Some have their blood drawn and get their monthly or bimonthly blood sugar reading and HGA1C count. These are the only numbers they have to gauge their BS control until they come into the clinic in the next month or two or three since home monitors are not commonly available due to expense. Even though medical care is supposed to be provided free by the government, patients end up having to pay out of pocket for almost everything...from medications to some health brochures. In the Western world, we have a part that we can play in helping places like Korle Bu. We must not take for granted and complain about all the resources that we have at our fingertips. I was excited to take a suitcase of donated medical supplies and materials donated from my Kaiser Permanente Clinic in Santa Clara, CA, where I am a Health Educator. In many ways I see that it will take many people many years to restore Korle Bu. It can even seem overwhelming to just think about how many resources and how much planning it will all take. However, because amazing things happen when we all do our part, the community is pulling together so that funds are being raised and plans are underway to restore the hospital campus. As St Paul assures us in his letter to the Corinthian Christians, "all things are possible through Christ who gives us strength." I am excited about what can be done to improve Ghana's health system, especially for the children. I see that my small part began last year through this visit to the health center, coordinated by the International Health and Development Network. It will continue, God willing, with joining the IHDN team that will return to Ghana in 2003 to work in the more rural setting. And I pray that my involvement and contribution will increase during and after my graduate training in public health and medicine, so that I can one day use my medical training to impact children's health in Ghana. Amazing things happen when we all do our part...
Ekua Blankson
Sunnyvale, California, USA
See also: http://antfarm.stanford.edu/Ekua/Photos/Ghana2002/