Howdy, all. For those of you that don't know, this would be my second time in Ghana, and I was only here for a few days. As a result, this will be one of my briefer posts. Much to my chagrin I was stuck on the boat for a few hours longer than I wanted to be when we first arrived while I waited for the release of my passport. However, once I'd obtained that sacred document, I ventured quickly to Accra, the capital city. I met with some of my friends from the boat, made hotel arrangements, and as it was already getting late at this point proceeded to party with them.
The next day I awoke early to meet one of my friends in Ghana, named Richard. Richard picked me up around nine in the morning and took me to Ho, a city in the Volta region of Ghana. I had spoken with Richard before arriving in Ghana and we had arranged to do an outreach clinic in one of the rural villages in the Volta region the next day. We arrived in Ho later that afternoon. We spent the remainder of the day purchasing various medicines and eyeglasses for the clinic. Major props to Dad for being the financial backer of the clinic.
The next day we woke early to drive to the village. The village is located on Lake Volta, in a rather picturesque setting. After a brief tour of the village we began seeing patients. The clinic consisted of a doctor, nurse, an eye doctor, and various other support staff. I worked in one of two stations. The first station is the blood pressure station. I took blood pressure, pulse, and temperature of the patients before they went to the doctor. The second station I worked at was the medication table. I simply filled the doctors prescriptions.
As I am sure you are curious, most of the health problems in Ghana revolve around three primary things. The first, and unquestionably largest complaint we hear of is pain. Understand that most of these people are rural sustenance farmers, as such their bodies have been shot nearly to hell. Alas, we can do little for these cases aside from prescribing them a pain medication for a week or two weeks. The second affliction is hypertension or high blood pressure. Personally, I think it is mostly because of their diets, but many people suffer from high blood pressure. The highest I saw that day was approximately 240/200 (a healthy blood pressure is 120/80 for those of you that don't know). Finally, the third affliction tends to be malaria, unsurprisingly. In addition we saw a few STD/STI cases (generally gonorrhea, etc not HIV/AIDS), some infectious disease, worms and other parasites, and very rare cases of yellow fever. We also provide prescription glasses for those with poor eyesight.
That day we saw roughly 120 patients before returning to Ho for the night. The next day I woke early to catch a bus back to Accra and the boat. In Accra I met with Dr. Senyo whom I worked with the last time I was in Ghana. He had many plans for how we could make the medical outreach program I did last spring and will do again this spring better. After that it was back to the boat and off to South Africa.
PS: Apologies to everyone, I intended to get postcards, but alas forgot to get them in my rush to finish my errands before getting back on the boat, I'll have more in South Africa though, I promise. Shoot me an email or leave me a comment with your address if you want one!
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