Doctors help deliver scanner to Ghana

Two Saskatoon doctors who have helped deliver millions of dollars in medical supplies and training to the west African country of Ghana are about to make their biggest delivery yet.

Obstetric specialists Dr. Wendy Gore-Hickman and Dr. Emmanuel Yeboah, who regularly travel to Ghana to help teach safe childbirth, are shipping a CT scanner to the country this year.

There is currently only one CT scanner in Ghana, a country of more than 22 million people. The new scanner will be the only one in the northern region, where people often have to travel more than a day to access adequate medical care.

"Half the reason that people die there is the transport," said Gore-Hickman.

The CT scanner will allow Ghanaian doctors to do a range of diagnostic work, providing detailed internal images of patients from head to toe.

"It will help thrust them a bit forward," said Yeboah.

Yeboah and Gore-Hickman began their work with Ghana in 2005, when they joined the American organization Kybele and began travelling to the city of Accra each year with a team of specialists to conduct training seminars in obstetrics.

"We found out they didn’t have basic supplies, like local anesthetics, catheters things like that," said Yeboah.

Then they discovered Canadian Food for the Hungry International (CFHI). To their surprise, CFHI had a 13,500-square-foot warehouse right in Saskatoon that was full of used and refurbished medical supplies for developing countries.

The supplies are free, the only cost involved is the shipping.

Through a stroke of good fortune, CFHI managed to locate a CT scanner that was originally bound for Israel but became mired in red tape.

CFHI got in touch with the Waterloo, Ont., businessperson who had purchased the machine and he shipped it to Saskatoon, where it arrived in a crate covered in red wrapping paper and with a map attached showing the package’s route to Africa.

A card on it read, "A gift to the people of Ghana."

For only $15,000 in shipping, Gore-Hickman and Yeboah are sending the scanner to Ghana along with a shipment of more than $2 million worth of equipment.

The shipping cost is primarily paid for through donations from Gore-Hickman and Yeboah’s colleagues.

They are sending a load of supplies to the hospital in Accra where they have provided training with Kybele, but Yeboah made sure the CT scanner will be sent further north, to the smaller community of Sunyani.

Gore-Hickman is confident doctors there will not have much trouble getting the most out of it, though they will face maintenance issues.

Ghana is a good recipient for the supplies, she says, because the country is developed enough to have the infrastructure to use high-tech equipment like a CT scanner.

"Before we send something like that we have to make sure they have the facilities to take it. . . . They are right on the cusp. They have the infrastructure, they have the people. They just need training."

Ghanaian doctors can also send back their scans to Saskatoon for help or advice if they run into issues.

"And if we have to take an x-ray tech with us on our next trip, it’s not going to be a big deal," she said.

"We have a lot of hands on board to help us."

The delivery contains an assortment of other goods, from basics such as linens, electronic beds, bedpans and wheelchairs, to high-tech essentials such as an ultrasound machine, a critical device in obstetric care.

Ultrasound allows doctors to see potential childbirth complications before they happen, providing an opportunity to act before they become fatal for the baby or the mother.

"This is about making sure that women don’t die when they have babies," said Yeboah.

Women are 100 times more likely to die from childbirth in Ghana than in Canada.

"An ultrasound machine will save a life over there once a week," said Gore-Hickman.

To see the medical system in Ghana steadily improve over the years is what keeps the Saskatoon doctors going.

"Every time you go there’s improvement. It’s just amazing. The people are really willing to learn and they want to improve themselves," Yeboah said.