AFRICA…
I learned a lot in Africa - valuable lessons like how-to group shower with ice cold bucket water and how to navigate the halls of the local hospital, but mostly I learned that aside from those relatively small and rather comedic adjustments, Africa is just fine. It’s not scary, it’s not barbaric, it’s not dangerous or disease ridden. It’s beautiful, and welcoming, and blessed and while there are problems - to define an entire country by their problems is as irresponsible as it would be to define all of Germany by the Holocaust or all of America by the Civil War.
I could work myself into a real frenzy if I continue to talk about the inaccurate representations of the continent and it’s portrayed “inaccessibility”, but instead I will try to focus on what I did there.
While in Africa, I met some of the best people I will ever meet. Hardworking people who are sad that their continent is so misunderstood. After waiting two days to get an interview for my capstone at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, I finally talked to a PR woman who explained, “When I go to a different place, I want to see the good there - but people don’t want to see the good in Africa, they want to see the bad - because that’s easier. So we have to be very careful about what people write about us.” Needless to say, I did get several interviews, for my capstone piece about women’s health in Accra. Abortion is illegal in Ghana, but there are various loopholes which allow organizations like Marie Stopes International and Planned Parenthood to work. I spoke to several people from various organizations about a new Reproductive Health Centre at the severely underfunded hospital. These were sincerely the most hard-working people I’ve ever met. I only hope to do them justice with what I wrote.
Jennifer Mergott
Capstone
ACCRA, Ghana
Laughter fills the newly renovated labor ward of Korle Bu Training Hospital in Accra. It’s the tail end of a slow day and Jennifer Boateng, a 25 year old midwife is filling out paperwork and cracking jokes with her colleagues.
Boateng, laments about the poor working conditions at Korle Bu but makes one thing clear, “I love my job. I love my profession. But I don’t like… I hate, the conditions.”
In Ghana, maternal mortality is the second leading cause of death amongst women. From June 7th till the 9th, the UN held their annual women’s health conference called “Women Deliver.” The purpose of the conference was to find ways, “to reduce maternal mortality and achieve universal access to reproductive health,” according to the website.
In attendance at the conference was Ernestina Naadu Mills, the first lady of Ghana. After attending the event, Mills returned to Ghana with the idea of opening a new Reproductive Health Centre at Korle Bu. Through her repeated efforts, and with the agreement of the Ministry of Health, the Reproductive Health Centre opened this year opposite Korle Bu’s maternity ward.
Though the Reproductive Centre is impressive, the newly painted halls are empty, with only a few people working at a time.
Evelyn Manful, a 27-year-old midwife at Korle Bu said the centre is a necessity, but that additional work is still needed. “We have a lot of women who need family planning. So we need the Reproductive Health Centre to help them.”
Boateng estimates that the hospital has about 10 percent of the resources they need. However, she notes that this is through no fault of the hospital or it’s employees. She said, “We have the skill, but we don’t have the facilities.”
Mari-An Nerisse Agbodzah, has been a devoted and skilled midwife at Korle Bu for almost 30 years.
“I delivered all the children in this room,” Agbodzah boasted with a satisfied smile on her face. Though the room is small, and there are only 4 children in it, Agbodzah’s pride lies in her work.
While Agbodzah loves her job, she believes the hospital is understaffed and underfunded. “We need a lot of nurses. The workload is too much. The staff is very small. We need more hands.”
While the need for more workers is high, there is also a great need for equipment. Manful, echoes Agbodzah’s sentiments, “I love the job, but everything else is bad. The buildings, the equipment we use – all is bad.” Manful listed forceps, monitors, incubators, and delivery beds as some of the supplies needed.
When describing the conditions of her workplace, Agbodzah’s prideful smile wanes. “The wards are leaking. When it rains the whole place is wet with water.” Agodzah also concedes that there is not enough medical equipment. Agodzah hasn’t noticed any significant government-funded improvements. She believes government funding is not helping the maternity ward.
Faustina Fynn-Nyame is the country director at Marie Stopes International (MSI), a women’s health facility also located in Accra. According to her, the problem is that money and funding for African health are generally pumped into HIV/AIDS programs, especially in recent years. However, for Ghana, if more money was put into reproductive health, the spread of HIV/AIDS and the need for such programs could go down.
Marie Stopes International is a good role model for the new Reproductive Health Centre because it also focuses on reducing maternal mortality and providing long-term family planning. Their investment in the Reproductive Health Centre will hopefully reinvent the entire maternity department.
Currently, the maternity department, as Agbodzah describes, has a six-floor layout. The first and second floors are the labor wards. The third floor is NICU, 4th and 5th are post-natal care and the 6th floor is VIP.
She explains that the VIP floor, which was designed for government officials costs approximately $455 a night for a single and $385 for a double. To gain entrance to the VIP floor, one must be granted special permission by the head of the department. The upscale environment of the VIP ward puts the leaky and under-funded wards to shame.
The department is suffering from a lack of government funding, but the government does not feel the effects of this. As Boateng points out, “We feel sorry for our own citizens because the rich don’t suffer, the poor suffer.”
Despite the favorable aspects of the 6th floor, the 2nd floor is actually the newest – having just been renovated this year. It seems, at first glance, that the government is behind this renovation. However, like most renovations in the hospital, the 2nd floor was an adopted cause, privately funded by MTN, a global communications company widely used in Ghana.
Similarly, Marie Stopes International, though supported and subsequently commissioned by the Ministry of Health helped privately fund the Reproductive Health Centre along with several other anonymous donors.
The reproductive health centre will hopefully act as the hospital’s equivalent of Planned Parenthood or Marie Stopes International. Agdobzah said that its job is to provide family planning and provide various birth control methods including condoms, IUDs, oral pills and even sterilization. In general the goal is to prevent unwanted pregnancy in hopes that this will reduce maternal mortality and help lessen the stress on the overworked maternity ward.
Though the government helped commission the new Reproductive Health Centre, funding for the maternity ward was cut in other areas. As of this year, having a child at Korle Bu is a cost that is no longer covered. Boateng estimated that the actual cost for a normal delivery at Korle Bu is approximately $175. In a country where the minimum wage is approximately 45 cents per hour, $175 is a precious price to pay.
For the 80 percent of the people who enter the hospital with National Health Insurance this is not a problem, but for the one out of five who enter without it, the price is steep. While the new Reproductive Health Centre is a large step, without consistent efforts and funding to maintain and grow, the centre will remain empty and unhelpful.
Fynn-Nyame sits in her office at Marie Stopes International, gently rubbing her pregnant belly. She talks about the importance of women’s health care in developing countries. While she recognizes the huge strive towards improving women’s health and well-being she still describes women as the silent voice of the country, “Who are they gonna complain to? There’s nobody for them.” -30-
Sources:
Kafui Aboagye, midwife at Korle Bu: 024-658-9371
Evelyn Manful, midwife at Korle Bu: 024-447-4873
Mari-An Nerisse Agbodzah, midwife at Korle Bu: 020-904-6171/030-224-3014
Jennifer Boateng, midwife at Korle Bu: 024-323-5067
Antonio Quarshie-Awusah, Marketing Manager at Marie Stopes International: 233 (0) 54 4330685
Faustina Fynn-Nyame, Country Director at Marie Stopes International: 233 (0) 54 4330680
http://www.modernghana.com/news2/283601/1/korle-bu-teaching-hospital-commissions-four-projec.html
Marie Stopes International: various pamphlets and brochures
