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Saturday, March 5, 2016

Providing health care in a poor region in Africa

Providing health care in rural Ghana is challenging. Many of our sick patients cannot afford the CT scans, antibiotics, analgesics and Foley catheters necessary for their care. The hospital cannot afford to buy these supplies and does not have them available. The families, if they have the money, must seek out pharmacies in town to purchase the items. All this takes critical time in an emergency. I save medications which were not used on former patients for these poor patients. It occupies much of my time and effort to keep a supply. When the patients are admitted at midnight or on the weekend, when all the pharmacies are closed, I hope I have enough medications to keep them alive until the morning.
A 19 year-old boy needs urgent reconstructive surgery in Lubeck, Germany. Two months ago, a German Professor/surgeon removed his mandibular tumor, but the young man needs reconstructive surgery to prevent lifelong disfigurement and feeding problems. When the patient applied for a passport, the machine was broken. The former head of the passport department was removed for accepting bribes for passports. The family has finally obtained the passport; now the Embassy states he must apply in person for the visa. Many calls and emails to the embassy explaining the patient’s condition have not resulted in any response.
Progress is slow and difficult, but with much effort lives can be saved.

Having my wife here is good; with her doing the marketing, cooking, paying household bills, etc., it enables me to better cope with frustrations, freeing me to study and care for my patients.

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