Kristi Goes to Ghana

I think this is where I left off last time…

Feb 23

This morning I was in the records department and I spent the afternoon in the injection/dressing room.  After things wound up there, I went to see the River Oti.  This is the river that separates Ghana from Togo. Last week I had someone offer to take me to the river and cross into Togo. I decided to check with Dr. Jean and Bob on that, because it is a different country, and they advised against entering another country without permission!  So today, we just went and visited the river, without crossing!

It was so beautiful and it was interesting to see how high the river gets during rainy season.  Often, toward the end of dry season, people can wade across the whole river!  The river is unusually high for this late in dry season, and would have been impossible to wade across.  There were people on the Togo side washing their clothes and laying them out to dry on large rocks.  There were also a couple of canoes taking people from one side to the other for a small fee.  There used to be many crocodiles in the river, and allegedly there still are as some people come to the hospital with tetanus from crocodile bites, but we didn’t see any!

After returning from the river, I went over to meet David’s family and see his home.  It was a nice social visit and I was glad to meet 2 of his 3 children, even though his youngest was afraid of me!  Christopher is 14 months old and when I held him in my lap, he tried so hard to get down was not happy!  It is amazing to me that the small round clay homes that look so small and simple look so modern inside.  His home has electricity in all of the rooms and different round dwellings are different “rooms” of the house, with a common area outside connecting them all.

Feb 19-22

Extra long weekend!  The Buffalo team had to head back to Tamale to catch their flight to Accra early Saturday morning, so we all left early Friday morning.  When we arrived in Tamale, we went souvenir shopping!  We found lots of great stuff at Colwod, the place where Dr. Jean got me the dress.  We also went to the “Culture Center” which is basically a bunch of shops selling souvenirs!  I got lots of great stuff and had JK help me do some bargaining!

After getting back from our shopping (and sweating!) we hung out at the “Jungle Bar” at the guest house we were staying at and some of us enjoyed some Ghanian beer- Star, not too bad!  It was sad to say goodbye to the team, as I really bonded with them.  After they were on their way, the rest of the weekend was spent relaxing.

Dr. Jean was worn out from all of the surgeries and chaos of the week, so we spent the rest of the weekend at the guest house reading and catching up on sleep.  It was very hot though, and the power was off all day Saturday, which meant no fans either!  Yuck!  Sunday we went to a Catholic Mass at Mt. Caramel, which was a beautiful church!  I was glad Dr. Jean and Bob didn’t mind taking me to a Catholic mass; the familiarity was comforting!

Monday morning Dr. Jean and I attended a surgical meeting at Tamale Teaching Hospital.  It was similar to a Grand Rounds presentation, in that it was just a lecture on a previously chosen topic.  It was interesting to see the teaching hospital and meet some of the faculty/doctors that work there.  After running a few errands in Tamale, we made it back to Saboba. 

Once back, I had a wonderful chat with Joshua, the Primary Health Care Coordinator about general health in the area and the different interventions they have implemented to improve health in the region.  I also talked to him about solar sterilization of water, and he is willing to try to add it to the education they deliver on their outreach trips to smaller villages!  I am very excited about that and plan to work hard the next couple of days to organize the information and teach some people here in Saboba how to sterilize water with sunlight!  Something I can do to significantly impact lives and health of the people here!  Wednesday I am going on one of the outreach trips- I am so excited!  More on that to come…

Feb 18

“Africa to me is a place like no other, a place of friendliness, struggle, poverty, corruption and beauty.  The positives and negatives leave me strong impressions and an equally strong desire to return.”
-Lynn

That is a quote I read while learning about the Italian-Ghanian Project (IGP) that really stuck with me.  It really describes how I feel about Ghana!  The combination of that quote and learning about the IGP made me start planning my next trip!  The IGP is an outreach project that is based out of Saboba in which people from all over the world, not just Italy, come to Saboba and go on daily outreach trips to the different small villages in the area to educate people and perform nursing care.  They teach the people of these small villages the importance of nutrition, keeping their living area clean, how to clean wounds and even train a “birth attendant” on normal labor and signs that a woman needs to be seen by a medical professional. 

To me, this sounds amazing.  This kind of project, going out into the villages and caring for and teaching the members of the community, is something I am very interested in.  And, the best part is, you don’t have to be in medicine to be a part of this group/outreach.  Which means, that anyone could come… including business professionals who currently reside in Chicago ;)  It is definitely something I plan to look into and hope to be able to participate in.

The rest of my day was spent in the Cashier’s office.  It turned out to be a great experience!  I was able to learn about Ghanian National Health Insurance and see how everything is billed.  To be insured in Ghana, it is about 10 cedis (7 dollars) for a year of coverage!  Not only that, but everything is covered!  Medications, labs, doctor visits, hospital stays, surgeries… EVERYTHING!  Coming from the United States with all of the health care insurance issues, it is amazing to me that a third world country is able to provide such comprehensive care for so little money!