Ghana Reflections, September 20
The day started with Bruce reading from First John Chapter 3 verses 16-24. Verses 17 and 18 are key to me. They say, “How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help? Little children, let us love not in words or speech, but in truth and action.”
So... into action we went. Unlike Saturday's multiple delays, today we were alerted at breakfast that there were people lined up and waiting for us at our medical clinic.
A nurse from Winneba joined us. We picked her brain to better understand the Ghanain medical system. If we understood her correctly, she explained that anyone over age 70 is entitled to completely free health care if they complete the necessary paperwork and that pregnant women and infants up to age 1 are also covered for free. Women can go to the hospital to have their babies, but many in rural areas have them at home with a trained birth bed assistant. Each village has a trained birth bed assistant as well as a community health volunteer. When a child is born, a local nurse is also informed and she comes out on day 2 to check both the mother and child and to immunize the child.
We learned that the annual cost for health insurance is 160 Ghana cedis for a parent and 4 cedis for each child. This seems like a drop in the bucket, yet this is a HUGE amount of money for the poor in Ghana.
The medical clinic went well today. Ann and our native nurse were assisted by Jen and Heidi in evaluating people's health concerns and dispensing medications.
The weather kept the kids inside doing crafts. We continued with coloring and friendship bracelets. There were probably about 25 kids coming and going. They got a bit unruly at times...just like American children.
Some of us continued paiting. It's really coming along well. We have 1 more day to work until school starts on Wednesday and we should be able to complete the painting project. The villagers are working along side us. They have managed to install a drop ceiling and put up a partition in the storage facility in 2 days time. They are also well into installing the bathroom. This will be the first indoor toilet, shower, sink in Awombrew. Major progress!
We left Awombrew sweaty, dirty, thirsty, hungry and tired by American standards. By Ghana standards, this was just another ordinary day. That's something to pause and ponder...
Ellen Sicinski