Ray of Hope

On Friday June 17, I joined other healthcare staff of the hospital for a conference in Accra, the capital of Ghana. This was a Methodist health professionals conference and since the Ankaase hospital was founded and is being managed by the Methodist Church, it seemed appropriate for representatives from the hospital to attend. The Ghana Methodist Health System consists of 2 hospitals and 19 clinics. The conference was scheduled to begin at 9am and Accra is 5 hours south of Ankaase so the hospital decided to get a bus and shuttle us to the conference. We were told the bus will be leaving from the hospital at 3:30am. Fortunately (I’m being sarcastic), I did not have electricity in my house so I decided to wake up at 1am and get ready.  Electrical outages are common occurrences here. It was also raining furiously at the time. We are currently in the rainy season and it rains almost every day. Because of the rain and the darkness on the dirt road leading from my house to the h...

Almost 2 months ago (April 18 blog post), I wrote about a 15-year-old (Jennifer) with a 4-month old baby who was admitted to the emergency unit and stayed over a month. The baby had staph infection with huge wounds on both sides of the chest area, just above each clavicle. By God’s grace the baby recovered and the wounds healed perfectly. Mother and baby were finally discharged on Friday, May 31. After discharge, Dr. Nkansah (ER physician), Clements (Physician assistant) and I took them to their house. We wanted to assess the condition of the place where mother and baby will be staying. Due to extreme hardship, Jennifer’s mother rents a 12-feet by 12-feet room and shares this place with 5 of her kids (she has 7 children). Jennifer and her baby joined them in the already cramped space. The room had one window that was poorly placed thus, ventilation in the room was also very poor. The outside environment where the kids spent most of the time was also in a bad shape with trash and stagn...

On Saturday May 28 we cleaned up a section of the hospital that was used to store medical supplies in the past. A new store was built for medical supplies as a result of increasing need. Therefore, most of the usable items were moved to the new location. However, some of those items left behind were also usable. But due to lack of training in the usage of those resources, they were left behind. There are 2 rooms full of stuff but we had time to go through just one.  In a few weeks’ time, we shall go through the other room. We were very fortunate as most of the items were still usable. The plan is to arrange all the usable items and catalog them in a proper manner. This will enable ease of access when the need arises. Below are pictures of the project. Condition of the room before we began sorting it out. A different view of the same room. It was really packed with stuff. Sorting it out.  Usable medical resources. We have already used some of this f...

On May 24, 2016 I joined a group of hospital staff for a mental health forum in a small rural community known as Wawase.  The staff represented various hospital departments and I was representing the emergency unit. Wawase is about a 10 -minute drive south-west of Ankaase. Mental health education has become a big focus in Ghana and efforts are being made to educate the public and dispel erroneously held beliefs. Some strongly belief that mental illnesses are spiritual diseases caused by witches and that the person who suffers from a mental illness has been cursed.  Some family members will sometimes take suspected members with mental illness to “religious camps” and chain them to tress until the illness has “left” them. The goal is to eradicate these practices and help citizens understand the nature of mental illnesses. Community members listening to the message about mental health Due to the lack of adequate psychiatrists, some nurses are specially trained in ps...

This past weekend we (my dad and I) traveled to Nobekaw, a small village about 62 miles west of Kumasi, for a funeral. The hospital’s CEO/general manager lost his father in law so staff, family and friends were present for the funeral. Socializing...  Since arriving, I have observed an increase in the number of funerals being celebrated, particularly in the Ashanti region. I am not sure about the other nine regions. There are 10 regions (similar to states in the US) in Ghana and I am currently located in the Ashanti region. Saturdays have been reserved for funerals in this region and funerals have become a sort of social function, according to gathered opinions. Not only have they become popular social functions, they have also become a source of revenue for family members of the deceased person. An attendee is expected to contribute money, known locally as “Nsaa”, to the family of the deceased to help offset some of the cost involved in the planning of occasion. In ad...

Sunday May 8 was mother’s day in Ghana. This occasion has become a big part of the Ghanaian culture with lots of people partaking in various events organized for moms.  My siblings and I were blessed to take our mom out for dinner on this day. It was a very special occasion because it was the first time in almost 12 years of celebrating mother’s day, in person, with my mom. We went to Aboaso, about a 20- minute drive south east of Asenemaso-Kumasi (where my parents live). Located in Aboaso is nice restaurant known as Gisgo. This restaurant is situated on a small lake filled with lots of catfish which has become a very popular attraction. Because of the occasion, we waited for about an hour before getting our ordered meals. Below are a few pictures of our mother’s day celebration. We all had a good time J my mom (Stella) looking at her mother's day card My parents (Joseph and Stella Otsin). The restaurant is in the background. My brother (Dan), parent...

This past weekend I stayed in Ankaase to help clean up a trailer full of donated medical supplies. I usually go to my parent’s house in Kumasi (less than 20 miles away) during the weekend. The emergency room physician, Dr. Nkansah, organized this exercise when he discovered that there was a trailer of medical supplies. Some of these had been donated by various groups a very long time ago. There were items that couldn’t be used because of the lack of trained personnel while some were also incomplete equipment. We had some guys from the laboratory unit helping with the cleaning who discovered hundreds of petri dishes and micro pipettes and were very excited.  We began around 8am and stopped at at 1pm because of the extreme heat. It was almost 95 degrees by noon. Of course, the temperature kept rising. Dr. Nkansah (ER MD) going through boxes. Yes, those are shoes:) Wheelchairs and IV poles Mr. Francis (materials manager) hard at work in the trailer We w...