2018 Health Team

The medical clinic was up and running by 0800 in Nyamboi village and we enjoyed overcast skies which lowered the temperature by a few degrees for a few hours. By midday the heat was blistering once again. According to Dr. Mensah, “November isn’t the best month to come to Ghana.” Right.

Val was in charge of our nursing station today and together with Toni-Ann, our Ghanaian nurses, and “doctor of the day” Carlye, they had to kick into action with five very sick kids with malaria all requiring injectable antimalarials and rehydration. It was so busy that Jen McLoughlin (aka wee Jenny) had to be pulled from triage for reinforcement. Miraculously, these five kids walked out of the clinic on their own two feet by lunchtime.

Our triage team of Greg, Megan, Leslie, and Jen worked non-stop treating minor problems and sending the more serious patients through. Our diagnostic station run by Alisha, Anne and Anna had a full waiting room all day long and did a marvellous job providing the physicians with important information to assist our decision making.

Dr. Andy had a very unusual case of a pre-teen boy with what appeared to be an infected shoulder joint. When faced with a case like this that is beyond our capacity, we do everything possible to help. Using our connections at the nearest hospital and funds raised through our generous donors he was transported for the care he will need. Dr. Duncan was kept extremely busy with listing hernia patients for next year and accepting referrals from the physician team for procedures such as drainage of abscesses. Surgical nurse Becky dove right in and was a huge help to our nursing team.

Dr. Francois reminded us at breakfast that dentists take Wednesdays off work but we convinced him to join us anyway. These four amazing professionals worked steadily under the canopy with Dr. Carolyn keeping extremely busy with fillings.

Our eye clinic saw just shy off 100 patients today and a few special cases were shared with all at dinner. Dr. Josh had a patient who was blind in one eye and whose “good” eye was severely affected by glaucoma. Due to the generosity of our donors, he was able to supply her with one year supply of medications to preserve her vision. Dr. Mai looked after a young woman who was also blind in one eye and about to lose sight in the other eye due to an infection. Dr. Pete saw a 3 month old who was blind from congenital cataracts. We will work with NEA to support this child receiving surgery in Accra, hopeful that a life of blindness will be averted in all three of these patients.

While their colleagues sweated in out in the village, Dr. Martin and Marion preserved vision for 30 patients in the laser clinic. The laser clinic is known as the “country club” as the laser needs air conditioning.

Our clinic day ended with the Nyamboi village presenting our team with a mound of yams, a huge bowl of bananas and a beautiful white ram. It was an incredible display of generosity from this farming community.

The surgical team were faced with some massive hernias today. By repairing them, they are not just preventing death from hernia — they are restoring families’ incomes. These men can barely walk, let alone work on the farm. A hernia repair transforms their lives and thirty-seven lives were transformed on this day alone.

Our anaesthesia program is expanding by the hour and is now capable of administering general anaesthetics, spinal anaesthetics and sedation in all three theatres. Using the second ultrasound machine that we have, Dr. David is now teaching Eric how to do regional anaesthesia (nerve blocks). Eric is over the moon with the training he is receiving and loves working with Dr. David, Dr. Karen and Debbie.

One of our surgical nurses Bex had a birthday today and she received a lovely gift presented by Katie — a special box (empty box of gloves) filled with some treasures (bar of soap, toothpaste and some rocks). She was thrilled.

After dinner, our team was inspired and moved by an address by Dr. Mensah who thanked us for coming to Ghana again and again and again. He thanked us for raising funds again and again and again. He thanked us for our overwhelming professionalism that is displayed again and again and again. He concluded by thanking God for answering a prayer he began to pray in 1972 about his dream to bring medical services to Ghana. Tomorrow, he meets with the architects that will be building NEA’s model hospital called the Leyaata Hospital.

It’s happening again — my blogs are becoming books but there was no way that this day could be described in less than these 800-ish words.

This post is one in a series of Ghana Health Team 2018 Updates. You can subscribe to receive these updates by email.

Our day began with the news that our little patient with cerebral malaria survived the night but was still in critical condition. Our colleagues at the district hospital are doing everything possible to save her and we continue to pray for a good report tomorrow.

Our Ghanaian logistics team arrived in Nyamboi village at 0400 this morning to set up our canopies and organize the crowds. When our 3 buses of team members and translators arrived at 0800 it took no time at all to man our stations, pop up our incredible pharmacy and begin our task of caring for one patient at time. A small delegation of first-time team members that included Anna, Anne, Alisha, Jessica and myself greeted the chief and elders while the clinic got underway.

The clinic ran so smoothly and efficiently thanks to a great team effort. It was a real pleasure to have Dr. Simon and nurse Bex from the surgical team join us and consult on a gangrenous foot as well as a patient with an abscess that needed draining. Midday, the District Director of Health Services and his team arrived to greet us. He toured our clinic and witnessed Ghanaians and Canadians and Europeans working side by side and hand in hand. Abraham remarked to him, “This is more than mere friendship.”

Our eye clinic really suffered today as temperatures soared into the high 30s in their dark window-covered church clinic. They never complain, but Dr.Martin did declare at supper they are the “hottest team” of all. Many of last year’s glaucoma patients were reviewed in clinic today and are all doing very well.

Our dentists worked extremely hard today and didn’t seem to even notice the goats continually grazing around their canopies.

Back on the compound the surgical team had a full and challenging day with four emergency cases in addition to all of their booked surgeries. Dealing with a few dodgy stomachs they pushed through with incredible resilience. Ashley shared at dinner how proud he was of all the surgical nursing staff who have very long days arriving early and staying late to prepare the theatres and sterilize everyone’s instruments. There was one marriage proposal in the OR and it involved a dowry of bush meat — I will leave you guessing on that one!

Dr. Dan’s last patient of the day was unexpectedly complicated. When Dr. Simon arrived back from the village he immediately scrubbed in to assist. I popped in to see how they were doing to find our UK anaesthetist Dr. Karen and our Ghanaian anaesthetist Eric talking through advanced sedation techniques that were suddenly required due to the complexity of the case. Meanwhile Dan and Simon were able to successfully complete the surgery during which they explained to me that they were medical school classmates, best men at each other’s weddings but have never once operated together until that very moment. What a memory for them.

After our tomato soup, cashew-beef, rice and yam fries dinner (I know, right?!), Soale who leads NEA operations shared with us two important observations from today. Firstly, he noticed that his people were really touched emotionally by the care they received. A very elderly woman that Dr. Charlie and our nursing team cared for said to Soale, “Who said the world is bad now? Look at these people who come from another continent to help us beyond measure.” Secondly he shared a verse in the Bible from Psalm 133:1 that says “How good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters live together in unity.” He feels that the unity between the NEA leadership and the Ghana Health Team leadership and the unity amongst all of our team members is driving the success of this program. He thanked God for His hand on our work.

Abraham is right — this is more than mere friendship. It is about friends new and old who are wholeheartedly united in purpose and who truly do believe it is possible to make a difference in this great big world.

PS: We got your message Nicky Blunt and you name is already on the list for 2019!
PPS: We might just be teasing Josh Smith a lot over how much his family loves him.

This post is one in a series of Ghana Health Team 2018 Updates. You can subscribe to receive these updates by email.

NEA decided to treat us to a “sleep-in” after our long journey, so our day began at 7:30am under the gazebo. The NEA staff gather every morning to pray before they start their work and this morning, they invited us and all our translators to attend. Beautiful multi-part harmonies rang out as the staff led us in a song called “My God is Good.” David, who is an NEA accountant, shared a message from the Bible from Matthew 25 that talks about how whatever we do for the least of humanity we do for God himself.

A superb breakfast of oatmeal, omelettes, beans, fresh bread, peanut butter, watermelon and bananas along with Tim Horton’s coffee (we don’t leave home without it) was enjoyed by all. Dr. David joined us for breakfast. David is a young Ghanaian physician who is one of NEA’s scholars. He will be working with both the medical and surgical team for the second year in a row and we are excited about the mutual transfer of skills that will take place. “We will never forget this. We will always have you in our hearts,” he told us.

After breakfast, all the teams made their final preparations to begin our work and our automated pharmacy went live. The physicians spent a good hour with our local medical assistant Ernestina reviewing illnesses we are less familiar with, such as malaria, HIV and tropical ulcers to name a few.

The operating theatres were up and running by 10:30am, and despite the later than normal start, the team completed 35 hernia successful surgeries with zero complications. It is unusual for Day 1 to be so efficient, especially with so many first time surgical team members, but, Dr. Rob (aka Mr. Rob in the UK) declared it the “best first day ever.” Way to go surgical team! Imagine what they can do with a full day work.

We ran a very important medical clinic this afternoon for the NEA staff and their family members. What an honour for us to care for and provide medicine to these dear friends and their families. As seems to be the pattern, the clinic began with an emergency when a pregnant patient fell off a motorcycle on the road outside the compound. We were thankful that Dr. Kate brought an ultrasound machine from Edmonton which was a key diagnostic tool in this situation. Thankfully mom and baby are doing well.

Emergencies continued and today’s rapid response team of our paramedic Greg and Dr. Sue and Joan responded to a collapsed patient in the eye clinic as well as a toddler who was convulsing with cerebral malaria. The child was stabilized and after consulting with our paediatrician Dr. Anne, was transferred to the nearest hospital. We were thankful to receive word that the child was still alive this evening, but the situation is critical, and we pray she will survive the night. (Malaria is a leading cause of death among children under 5 in Ghana.)

The eye clinic worked until the sun went down (no power in their building), and they too had an exceptional first day — including a lovely fireworks show when their sterilizer sort of blew up. Thankfully, Ashley in the OR is a really, really nice guy who offered to provide sterilization services to our eye team for a nominal fee.

Our dental team were extremely busy and were faced with some challenging cases that Dr. Francois admitted were very humbling. I think we would all agree, this is humbling work for all of us. None of us are foolish enough to feel overconfident — we simply do our best one patient at a time.

According to the queen of logistics (BTW isn’t Kim looking fabulous in the new logistical team color of bright yellow), we saw 386 medical, surgical, dental and eye patients on this compound today. I’m just so glad it was the best first day ever. Not so much for us, but for NEA. The men and women and their families who do the very, very hard work of development 365 days a year deserve nothing less.

This post is one in a series of Ghana Health Team 2018 Updates. You can subscribe to receive these updates by email.

After just a few short hours of sleep we boarded the coach buses and enjoyed a smooth and beautiful journey to the North. Just after 11:00am local time we paused together under a mango tree for a Remembrance Day reading by Dr. Josh and a moment of silence.

Our journey lasted nine hours. As we pulled into the gates of the NEA compound, the driver laid on his horn for a solid three minutes to announce our arrival. We think this is how we might begin to announce our arrival home in the future! All of the NEA staff and their families greeted us in a receiving line that seems to get longer and longer every year. It was a sweet reunion. After a song and prayer of thanksgiving to God for our safe arrival, Abraham thanked us for our commitment to this program. He believes the motivation for people who take risks and make sacrifices of this magnitude is simply because of love.

Over the next two hours I witnessed the epitome of teamwork and cooperation as a medical clinic, nursing station, fully stocked pharmacy, eye clinic, dental clinic as well a surgical theatres and a recovery room popped out of nowhere. Everyone pitched in, even the children.

Our traditional spaghetti dinner, enjoyed by all in the dining hall, was prepared by Patience, who looked stunning in her white uniform and cap. It is also a tradition during our first dinner together that Dr. Carlye, who is our team doctor, gives us strict instructions regarding the two most common team health issues in Ghana: diarrhea or constipation. Funny how none of us mind this type of conversation over supper.

The work continued throughout the evening until eyelids literally started to drop. A well deserved night’s sleep awaits us all under our mosquito nets. As I drift off to sleep I’m thinking of so many special moments that I noticed today. I’ll leave you with a few….

I noticed Val caring for a little boy with a cut on his leg who somehow found his way in to the unpacking area.

In the midst of setting up the surgical theatres, I noticed Dr. Dan and Dr. Simon tucked away in a consulting room already examining tomorrow’s surgical patients.

I noticed Ashley and Emilia skipping across the field late at night to the theatre making sure the sterilizer wasn’t blowing the place up.

I noticed team members sitting in a large circle helping pharmacy prepare 5000 doses of deworming medication.

I noticed the massive task that our pharmacists Linda, Sherry, Martha, Alexa, Lisa and Kirlis have to set up an entire pharmacy in a few short hours. They would have pulled an all-nighter if we had let them.

I noticed Sandra coaching our first time nurse Toni-Ann on our triage system while Joan was coaching Alisha Anna and Anne on how to use the rapid HIV and malaria tests.

I noticed Greg, our paramedic, sitting on the floor with our trauma bag contents sprawled out just to be sure he was prepared for any emergency.

And finally, just as the sun was setting, I noticed our eye team had recruited a long line of children who were, with such pride and such ease, transporting all the boxes of eyeglasses to the clinic on their little heads.

It is time for our work to begin. Tomorrow as we have the honour of providing care to all the NEA development staff and their extended families, while operations will begin in the surgical theatres.

All because of love, indeed.

This post is one in a series of Ghana Health Team 2018 Updates. You can subscribe to receive these updates by email.

The young Ghanaian man in the Amsterdam airport listened as Dr. Sue and my daughter Jessica shared who we were and why we’re going to Ghana. He knew very well the challenges of the Northern Region of his country. He thanked us on behalf of all Ghanaians for crossing continents to help strangers and concluded by saying, “History will mark this.”

We are here. All sixty of us and all of our medications and supplies arrived safely (minus one personal bag which is en route from London). Our program and protocols and systems are ready to go, and I noticed some of our leaders fine tuning these things even as we flew through the night. (I love my Type A friends who may have a touch of OCD.) Other than one small flight delay, our travel was seamless, and we are grateful for those who prayed for our safe arrival.

We enjoyed a wonderful meal at a lovely hotel. Soon we will begin our journey northward. Our dear friends at NEA will be waiting to greet us under the mango trees and once our reunion with them is complete, we will begin the massive task of unpacking.

“History will mark this” was a thought-provoking comment for me, and I realized that perhaps the significance of this mission for the Ghanaian people has dimmed for me over this past year. How easy it is to forget what life would be like without access to a doctor or a dentist or medication. How can we even fathom that a surgical illness — even a simple hernia— could be a death sentence for many? What would a day be like for us without our contact lenses and glasses? I choke up when I remember that without health care, only two of my five kids would probably be alive and well today.

My BBC news app reminds me every day of the evil and destructive events that seem to be marking our current times. What a privilege for us to be part of an effort that is born out of kindness, love, compassion, and justice for our global neighbours. While we may never show up in any history books, I’m reminded that our annual visit to the Mo Land marks something very significant — the arrival of hope and healing for men, women and children who are just like you and me.

This post is one in a series of Ghana Health Team 2018 Updates. You can subscribe to receive these updates by email.

Dear Team,

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.

This simple but profound message from Mother Theresa was handed to me as we were leaving for Ghana on our very first mission. Every year, I wake up on departure day thinking about these words.

Yesterday is gone. Everyone has done such an absolutely incredible job preparing for this mission, raising funds and doing everything we can possibly do to plan for every contingency known to man. How can I say thanks for all you have done to pull every aspect of this mission together? We have prepared well, and now it is time to forget about preparing and begin. Any oversights we will face together.

Tomorrow has not yet come. Oh that’s a good one, isn’t it? There indeed is no point worrying about what might be or what could be. Whatever tomorrow brings, with God’s help, we will face it together.

We only have today so let us begin. Let us begin to open our eyes to the needs of the developing world and visit the sick. Let us begin to equip Ghanaian healthcare professionals. Let us begin to offer our support to NEA as they get closer to the dream of sustainable health care. Let us begin to have a whole lot of fun together along the way!

Let us begin.

May God bring you all safely to Ghana.

Jenn

Our Ghana Health Team Leaders meet regularly at a quaint little coffee shop in Uxbridge called Nexus. This morning, as Kim (head of logistics), Lynnita (GRID Canada) and I sipped our lattés and went over the final marching orders for our 2018 mission, I had an epiphany as I read the definition of Nexus on the coffee shop wall:

These five letters that make up this one little word so beautifully capture how I feel about the very unique relationship between the Ghana Health Team (GHT), Ghana Rural Integrated Development (GRID) and Northern Empowerment Association (NEA). One week from today our team will begin our journey from all over the world to Ghana where for two weeks we will be in a nexus: we will be in relationship with, linked to, and bonded with an extraordinary group of people working towards a most critical goal.

Our nexus is all about our hosts: I cannot wait to greet Dr. Mensah and Abraham and the NEA staff and volunteers under the mango trees when we step off the bus, ready to assist them in their mission of reflecting God’s love to people in need.

Our nexus is all about our Ghanaian healthcare colleagues: I cannot wait to work alongside these remarkable people and bring desperately needed medicine and supplies for their clinics. I cannot wait to share skills that they can use when NEA’s hospital opens in 2020.

Our nexus is all about our patients: I cannot wait to see Joshua, a little boy whose life was saved by our team eight years ago. I cannot wait to see Princess, whose mother’s death during childbirth lit a fire under us all to do more to reduce maternal mortality in Ghana.

Our nexus is all about our friends and families and donors who make it possible for us to share who we are and what we do best with people in need. I cannot wait to share our stories with you.

And finally, our nexus is all about our teammates. Many of us are now lifelong friends bonded forever by our work together. We will add new friends to our fold this year as we wholeheartedly serve each other and our hosts and as we stand in solidarity with those who suffer so much.

The United Nations has issued an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth. They are calling us all to engage in nexus thinking in creating connections and networks and think across different scales, domains, sectors and disciplines to find effective and efficient solutions to tackle the world’s problems. This is precisely what NEA invited us into a decade ago and precisely what we will continue to do until the dream of sustainable healthcare becomes a reality.

I feel so privileged to be part of the GHT-GRID-NEA Nexus. It has been a fantastic journey and I am so excited about what is yet to unfold on the ground in 2018.

May God grant us everything we need to fulfil our mission.

 

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This post is one in a series of Ghana Health Team 2018 Updates. You can subscribe to receive these updates by email.

St. Francis of Assisi said,