I think posterity will wonder... They will wonder how we expected to... And why we had more Toyota V8 Land Cruisers than ventilators, and more members of parliament than medical/surgical consultants. They will wonder... They will find it hard to understand, how we managed to be so rich... begging for finances to run health programmes.

Castle Musings

In the 17^th Century, the white castle on the Osu scarp called Christiansborg, stood tall.  But very little Christian happened within its walls.  It stood for centuries, the destination of the doomed.  It became the bastion of oppression, repression and dehumanization of many who were trapped in it. 

What a vaccine does is to alert the body that something is coming. It is the rallying cry to the immune system that says that this is how the virus looks like. A vaccine usually presents a ...

Viral plans

There is something striking about taking an afternoon walk on the University of Ghana campus.  Birdsongs! Straight lines of old trees, their branches filtering out the sun, shelter the walkers along the pavements that are almost everywhere.  Walking in the afternoon is a breeze. The afternoon sun almost seems too far away to burn skin. 

The facial expressions that we depend on to asses our clients have been taken away, but sometimes it’s not just facial masks that people wear, but ear masks, eye masks, heart masks, brain masks… and it does not matter how loud one shouts. They will do what they will do.

Frontline reflections

I have two friends in ICU now. One has been on a ventilator for the last 2 weeks, and one is not. Their faces are always on my mind. Every day, I make that call that apprises me on their clinical numbers. I say a prayer. I trust that they both get better. I look forward to seeing them someday soon. There is always my doctor’s mind that never loses sight of the worst case scenario. But I have got to keep pushing the harsh reality of the swelling limbs, the worsening numbers, and how the last CT scan looked. I need to push that reality away, and believe. I have lost a few friends since January. I have to believe I will not lose more. 

To let this disease run riot, is to forsake the very heart of what keeps us whole. We cannot forget the soldiers as the war rages. We cannot starve the army in the face of an enemy that does not take prisoners.

Viral Reflections

Some things never change: the one who looks after my car is still in Korle Bu.  So this week, whilst waiting for him to fix the trauma that the Spintex roads have inflicted, I took a walk.  I retraced steps from my primary school alma mater, along the still pavement-less roads onto the hospital campus.