Koforidua Eastern Regional Hospital

#GoBeyondGiving

As many of my facebook friends have seen, I recently spent 3 weeks volunteering at the Koforidua Eastern Regional Hospital in Ghana during which I gained first-hand knowledge of the needs of Third World medical community.  I learned that, despite being highly dedicated and educated, without technology or resources the doctors and nurses cannot deliver desperately needed healthcare.  Most poignantly, these hospitals can better offer life-changing services if provided with supplies we might consider rudimentary basics... with price tags that many of us can easily afford.

To put the needs of the Ghana community into perspective, I want to share an experience that I had while working in the Emergency Room:

At 8:00 AM, an 80-year-old woman came into the ER after being hit by a car.  By 12:00 PM, she was still lying in the Triage area, having only received X-Rays.  Noticing that she might have suffered a spinal injury, I suggested we apply a cervical collar.  Instead of reaching into the supply box to retrieve this seemingly commonplace item, a medical student brought me over a piece of cardboard and some gauze.  It took me nearly 20 minutes to manufacture a cervical collar for this woman, during which a man came in who fell through a roof, and I set to work fashioning another cervical collar.  While I was at work, a woman having a seizure was admitted and everyone’s hands were tied.  

After the chaos had subsided, we returned to check on the 80-year old car accident victim, only to realize she did not have a pulse.   I completed five rounds of CPR and asked the technicians to manually check her vitals… she still had none.  I then called for the defibrillator, and was informed that the hospital was not equipped with one.  My patient was gone.

Stories like these are far too common in Third World hospitals.  We cannot always know if one medical supply would make the difference; however, patients will undoubtedly have a better chance if the necessary resources and technologies are readily available and not being created out of gauze and cardboard on an as-needed basis.  Unfortunately, the hospital is funded by the people of the community, many of whom do not even have running water and cannot afford the medical care they need.  

It is hard to watch someone die who could have been saved.  We take for granted that our trauma victims are offered a cervical collar within one minute of arriving at a hospital or in an ambulance.  We have heart monitors that offer auditory alerts to staff so they know, immediately, when a patient in a nearby bed has stopped breathing and/or circulating blood.  Not only do our hospitals offer defibrillators, but, in recognizing their life-saving capabilities and relative low cost, so do most public buildings.  

I made this page to share my story and hopefully to help the hospital that was able to give me such a unique experience as someone pursuing a medical career.  A cervical collar costs $9.00 USD.  With the exchange rate of the national currency, the Ghana Cedi, and importation costs, this relatively inexpensive supply is much more difficult for Ghanians to afford. Even if only 10 of my friends were willing donate just one dollar, I could send Koforidua Hospital a cervical collar to help patients like the one I described above. Additional donations will allow me to send more supplies, in the hopes of raising enough money to eventually send a heart monitor and/or portable defibrillator. With little damage to your budget, I hope you’ll help me make a large and potentially life-saving impact on the lives of the Ghanaian medical community. If you can’t afford to donate right now, I hope that you will at least share this page. I appreciate your donation, time, and compassion.