03/26/2023 Travel Report 2 - Ghana - Trip

Today we have completed the first long day of work. In the meantime it is 9:00 p.m. and we are quite tired from countless exciting impressions that we were allowed to take with us today. We use the morning to prepare a mission statement and the steps needed for it for the next week. It was important to specify not only the times, but also the responsibilities. Over the next few days, we will try to join forces to distribute the beds to the 18 selected hospitals. After distributing the tasks with Prof. Prudence, our long-time partner in Ghana - today Dean (Headmaster) of the School of Nursing and Midwifery School and Mark, the Assistant Registrator and Project Manager of the Catholic University, we first went to lunch. We use the waiting time there for a first interview with Mark. You will be able to see these interviews on various topics on our Youtube channel shortly  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1zWW3JrtH5z93YMK3CybSw .

Daniel at the Interview with Mark

After refreshment with delicious Jollof rice, we went on to the Fiabre Health Centre. This small hospital with 3 departments is a so-called "Health Centre without doctor" and is run by a nurse. You can also learn more about it  soon in our YouTube Channel.

Mission Statement

In this small hospital, the midwife in charge helps women to give birth to about 10 children per month. If there are critical pregnancies, they are referred to another hospital. There is one ambulance vehicle throughout the district to transport these patients. Transportation is not an insurance benefit but must be paid privately. Often, therefore, these transports are made under adventurous circumstances in private vehicles or other means of transport. Super interesting for us is always the hospital pharmacy. In total, we were able to identify exactly 12 different medications offered there. The "non-existence" of medication is repeatedly mentioned to us as one of the most important problems.

Krankenhausapotheke

After the very interesting and informative visit to the Health Centre, we visited Professor Prudence at the university. There we met, among others, several lectors, all of whom taught on weekends. Surprised?

Fiabre Health Center

On weekends, in addition to the normal student programs, weekend courses are offered for students* who are already working and therefore can only study on weekends. These are particularly interesting for the university because they can usually pay the tuition fees without any problems. In addition to more informal meetings, we use this visit once again to discuss the distribution of beds. We were concerned with optimizing the routes for the trucks. To do this, it was necessary to adjust the number of beds in order to optimize distribution so that the trucks only have to drive certain routes once. Shortly before the end of today, we had a de-briefing with our contact person Mark - quite unconventionally in the air-conditioned car. He was very pleased with the day, although we certainly made extreme demands on him with our most varied requests. We are a little less euphoric because he has lots to do tomorrow so we can still somehow meet the schedule. We tried to convey that to him without being too demanding. "With the help of God" - it will work out, was his comment!

Briefing in the car

Thomas on bed reallocation with Professor Prudence and her colleague Luke Ojo, head of the Public Health Department