Severe complications resulting from untreated minor disease

As expected in a place with few dentists and one physician per 27,000 inhabitants, our patients present late with severe complications from tooth infections resulting in airway obstruction, neck abscesses and septicemia. Other diseases which progress to severe complications due to the lack of health personnel are: 1) Nasal polyps resulting in sinusitis, brain and forehead abscesses, 2) Laryngeal, sinus and parotid tumors which are no longer curable and 3) Untreated congenital cleft lips, palates and cysts. Our acute cases are trauma from road traffic accidents, falls from trees, and foreign bodies in the lungs and esophagus.

The necessity of drug regulation was evident by a boy with a sore throat who took a local medicine and began bleeding from several sites, resulting in his death.

There are only two headlights for eight examiners. We ordered six portable camping headlights hopefully to be brought over today by a visiting otolaryngologist. There are an additional four headlights in a container which should arrive in two months.



Untreated tooth infection which spread to the neck.



Untreated nasal polyp which lead to sinusitis and brain abscess.

Recently, we heard an excellent lecture on macular degeneration by Professor Chapman, a visitor from the University of Louisville. Macular degeneration, which usually develops later in life and responds to vitamins, is not common in Ghana because the life expectancy here is 56 years.