Teaching Hospital Tour

7/4/17

Another seemingly simple day still felt full. We all woke up just before 7:00 am to start the day with a little African cardio dance. Many of the students were disappointed it wasn’t a more traditional dance class— it was a fairly basic but fun cardio class set to pumped up Afro-pop with a positive up beat instructor. We shimmied our way around the grassy common area and for about 20 minutes got our hearts beating and then got mini-massages before breakfast. 

There are so many of us that the breakfast cooks are having trouble keeping up with our desire for eggs! They are quiet tasty and the passionfruit juice was a nice zesty way to start the day. However, many students were left wanting more— luckily for them lunch was another overloaded meal. I ended up having jalof again because I couldn’t quiet here what the waitress said when she listed the menu. Throughout the meal we had a few little companions watching— flies and a little boy with a bright smile who loved posing just outside the fence that surrounded the patio where we were sitting. I kept dinner simple with some sort of spicy fish soup— the broth was a thick red stock with giant chunks of white fish— after pulling out the bones it was fresh, tender and sweet providing a nice counter to the spicy base.

We had two lectures in the morning on Health Care Systems and Health Sector Objectives that gave the students an overview of health care in Ghana. It sounds like they’ve done a good job of integrating traditional homeopathic medicine with western medicine— this has led to a strong community centered healthcare. Ghana has national health insurance and—46% of the ovulation is enrolled in the national plan and as a result  97% of the population has access to primary care. However, there are various reports and it was hard to verify the actual numbers. Regardless, Ghana is a leader in healthcare in Africa.  

In the afternoon we had a nice walking tour of the teaching hospital— it was great to get out of the bus and move around. I’m feeling a bit antsy with all the driving around the city. When we returned to the guest houses we had our small group meetings— it was fun to sit down and chat— to hear about the students purpose for coming on the trip and hear about what they are excited about. Everyone has enjoyed getting to know the locals and hope to spend more time getting to know some of the small children. 

I also spent a fair amount of time getting ready for my presentation on Occupational, Physical and Environmental Wellbeing. Fingers crossed it’ll go smoothly tomorrow. (Signing off for the evening but I will try to upload photos from today tomorrow).

Danny