The Trio of American Med Students
On Thursday morning after I moved to Dansoman we met with Dr. Nyarko at the police hospital to plan our schedule. We will be working in the police hospital two days a week shadowing through the different wards. After we went to this huge market in Accra where they sell everything from cloth to woodcraft and the sellers follow you from stall to stall in order to get to you even look at their items. We also went to the Kwame Nkrumah mausoleum and got a tour of the grounds. I believe President Obama will make a trip there when he comes to visit this coming weekend. The city is getting so excited about Obama’s visit but it doesn’t seem like the city is doing much to prepare. Apparently the slave castle at Cape Coast where he will visit was painted but even then they only painted the sides that he will see and didn’t bother to paint the back side. Inside the mausoleum the guide showed us all these photographs of Nkrumah meeting with heads of all different countries. The Ghanaians apparently believe that the UN was behind his murder since he seemed to be allies with conflicting sides like countries such as Cuba and the US.
On Friday we went to Adabraka Poly Clinic and also met with Dr. Yabani at the AMA (Accra Metropolitan Association.) He talked to us about the health care system in the 11 different districts in Accra. There were several hospitals, poly clinics, local health centers and throughout all of the 11 districts there are currently only two community health workers. They monitor things like cholera outbreaks in the various regions and had a wall full of data analyses compiled from all of the hospitals under their direction. The system appears organized and efficient but after experiencing the rural villages I question how truly effective the health care delivery is.
Friday night we met up with MartenLois (the diabetic nutritionist from Port Clinic) who took us out to Champs Bar at the Paloma Hotel. There was great karaoke all night and the place was packed with international people. Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to sing Sweet Caroline, so maybe next time.
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- Jeff and Lauren at the Kwame Nkruma Moseleum
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- Our tour guide in front of the old, headlessd vandalized statue of Nkruma
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- MaxiLite being sold at a stand in one of the tro tro stations. MaxiLite is one of the many skin lightening creams you can find which people use as body creams and has the potential to cause the ochronosis as I showed you in some previous posts.
