A Doctor’s Story

Standing under an open air building with only two foot high walls, dozens of people waited for us.  Although clinics existed in the area, no doctor was available for miles.  Doctors in Ghana primarily work in large cities or hospitals. There is such a shortage of doctors that the larger towns are staffed by Nurse Practitioners and the smaller towns staffed by a nurse or nurse assistant.  The small villages have no medical providers at all.  At least no one most Westerners would consider medical providers.  The truth is, probably all villages have a witch doctor, using herbs and age old treatments, passed down through the centuries to care for their fellow villagers living deep in the bush.

I expected to see lots of infectious diseases and maybe strange exotic diseases or parasites.  Instead, over half the people complained of joint and muscle injuries caused by hours of hard work, year in and year out.  Back aches caused by working hunched over hoeing the dirt with short handled hoes, pulling up crops, or walking for miles carrying firewood on top of their heads.  Women and girls spend hours carrying bowls of water on their heads walking multiple times a day from hut to river, so their families have water to drink, bathe and wash clothes in.

At the end of the day, I was honored by the many who waited so long to have a turn to see me.  I knew the medicine we provided would help them for a little while, but that eventually it would run out.  The pains would come back and the local medical practitioners would be the ones the people would turn to for help in the future.  Many people waited extra time to see me instead of the Ghanean Nurse Practitioner who allowed me to work with her.  I don’t know if it was because I was a doctor, because I was white, or because I did more complete physical exams, physically touching and evaluating patients more than my counterpart, that some patients asked to wait to be seen by me.  But after the clinic, I couldn’t help but think that if I was to be involved in long term service in Ghana, it would not be just to see long lines of patients for acute, one time needs.  It would be to help recruit and train more nurse assistants, Nurse Practitioners and doctors to stay and serve in Ghana, especially rural Ghana.  It would be to work with Ghanean leaders in figuring out how to lure graduating medical students and current physicians to stay in Ghana, as currently about half the Ghanean physicians leave the country for greener pastures.  For it is the local medical practitioners, like the Nurse Practitioner I worked with, who are the real heroes.  They are the ones who can meet the real, long term healthcare needs of their fellow countrymen and are the ones who can truly curb malaria epidemics and the deaths and illnesses caused by poor sanitation and poor access to clean water.  Only through the Ghanean people, with God’s help, can true, long term healing occur.  More than just a temporary healing for a sore back, but real prevention to keep kids from dying and children from being left behind as orphans.   I hope one day I can be more involved in true preventative care in Ghana, so the Ghanean people won’t want to wait to see me, because they will have their needs met by their own people.

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