The Clinic

At the clinic I am the assistant to one of the nurses. The hospital is very different than the hospitals in the US. Every morning the staff arrives at 7am and the clinic starts at 8. I work in the section of the hospital that deals with babies, new mothers, and pregnant women. This part of the hospital consists of a big main room filled with chairs facing the front of the room. Before anything medical related happens, scripture is read from the bible like it’s a church or something. Not everyone that goes to the hospital is christian, but they tolerate it anyway. After that, one of the nurses gives a lecture on family planning or something of that nature (I can’t understand anything up to this point because it is all in their native dialect, Twi). Then clinic will start. People wait their turn to receive standard injections and then babies will be weighed. Next they will come into a side room where I am. My duties are record keeping and figuring out if there are any problems with the babies or mothers that need further attention. I assigned these tasks before I really knew what was going on or how the system even worked. I have much more responsibility than I would be given in a hospital at home, considering my lack of training. Usually I don’t have many problems performing my duties, but sometimes I have trouble communicating with patients or I am unsure of how to handle a medical problem and all the nurses are too busy to ask, which is frustrating. I have noticed that the hospital lacks sanitation, organization and proper training. The wait times are long and the diagnosis and treatments of patients are often wrong. Unfortunately, I don't see things changing for the better until Ghana becomes more industrialized and the hospital has more resources, both financial and personnel-wise. I do what I can to help out when I am there and I hope that what I learn from my experience there will help advance me towards my goal of perusing a medical profession. All in all, I am happy to be working there and so far I have found it to be a very interesting experience.