The Ghanaian founders of the charity organization called Child Malnutrition Foundation (CMF) may undoubtedly have felt utterly embarrassed by the wrong-headed decision by some of the staff members of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Koforidua, the Eastern Regional Capital, to take undue advantage of some vulnerable patients in need of knee- and hip-replacement surgical procedures. But I was not the least bit flabbergasted by this patently undignified behavior of the hospital’s staff and the very bad reflection it cast on the image of the country.
To be certain, this incident could have happened in any Third-World country. But it is still not excusable by any measurable stretch of the imagination. But even more importantly, it pointedly underscores how abysmally decadent the moral fabric of our beloved nation has sunk. Not very long ago, irrespective of ideological suasion, gender, ethnicity or station in life, Ghanaians used to envisage ourselves as the conscience and intellectual and cultural leaders of the African continent. Alas, these days, almost nobody believes in such myth any more. These days, we are routinely reckoned as just another bunch of ordinary humans among the hoodlum pack.
We are told in the news story that forms the basis of this brief narrative that an establishment called Vitamilk, whose administrators are also the founders of the Child Malnutrition Foundation, invited a group of orthopedic specialists resident in New York State called Operation Walk Syracuse, who charitably donated their services to patients in dire need of knee and hip replacement in underdeveloped countries, to extend the same services to some of Ghana’s poor and destitute sometime early this year. The project which saw the selection of tens of patients from around the country had been expected to cost these patients nothing. But as was to be reasonably expected, the hosting foundation executives, we are told, reluctantly agreed to allow the staff of St. Joseph’s Hospital, the hosting institution, to charge a nominal fee of GH₵ 1,000, that is, approximately $250, to meet some overhead costs.
The CMF hosts would soon discover to their utter displeasure and embarrassment that the staff of St. Joseph’s Hospital had resorted to scamming these needy patients by as much as GH₵ 5,000 or $1,000. This scam came to light after some of the selected patients who had made reasonable down payments on the original GH₵ 1,000 fee were adamantly denied treatment access to the Operation Walk Syracuse volunteer doctors. We are told that provoked to anger by the discovery of such unconscionable betrayal, the volunteer American doctors downed their tools and left the country.
As of this writing, we are told that plans are afoot to convince the Operation Walk Syracuse doctors to return to the country and offer their voluntary services to Ghana’s neediest and most deprived patients, with the pledge that what happened at Koforidua’s St. Joseph’s Hospital would not be repeated. What is also interesting to learn here is that the Operation Walk Syracuse doctors are reported to have shipped their own surgical equipment into the country at their own cost, with the staff at the hosting hospital not having to pay a dime. The American doctors also left their equipment behind, with the understanding that it would be put to good use by their Ghanaian counterparts.
Personally, I see two alternatives here for the Operation Walk Syracuse doctors. One alternative is for them to be hosted by a different hospital the second time around, for as that old maxim rightly observes, “Once bitten, twice shy.” They could decide to be camped by one of the sub-regional hospitals, such as the Kyebi Government Hospital, Suhum Government Hospital or the Atibie Government Hospital, with a strict undertaking by the staffs of these three public hospitals that nothing beyond nominal fees will be charged patients. We are told by the MyJoyOnline.com reporter that officials of the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service have yet to be formally informed about this most unethical incident. It is hoped that a thorough investigation will be promptly conducted into the matter and the culprits promptly disciplined.
But even more significantly, the Minister of Health and the Head of the Ghana Health Service may have to offer written official apologies to the volunteer doctors of the Operation Walk Syracuse organization and clearly explain to the American doctors what steps have been put in place to ensure that the St. Joseph’s Hospital scandal is not repeated. Such steps must include the imperative requirement for the authorities of the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service to be notified well ahead of schedule about any foreign volunteer doctors and/or organizations invited by any civil society organizations to deliver their laudable services to Ghanaian citizens and residents.