Heart to Heart

The ICHA Blog

Lessons from Elmina by Miriam Padilla on October 12, 2009 | 6 comments

We went to Elmina to teach health workers about cardiovascular disease, and we left with new lessons for ourselves and our organization.  One of the biggest lessons we took away from interacting with the health workers at Elmina Health Center was the enthusiasm and delight of learning something new or seeing things in a new light.  The health workers at Elmina had such earnest interest in learning that it made the topics of cardiovascular disease even more exciting because of their energy.  They brought insightful questions that made us realize that what seemed so concrete now has to be flexible enough to adjust to cultural interpretation.  We realized that we could not simply say “You should not have salted fish and carbohydrates like cassava”.  Since these are the main source of frugal nutrients, we had to stress moderation instead.  One has to look at why their diet is composed of foods high in salt.  If they had dependable electricity and refrigeration, they would not have to salt their fish so as to help preserve it. By this notion, we come to see how something as fundamental as electricity actually has a huge impact on the source of hypertension for many in Ghana.

Another lesson that we took away was the importance of taking care of others to your best capacity. Ghana has nationalized health care.  Patients can choose to pay $15 a year to have health insurance. The insurance will cover for clinical consultations and medicines.  Because infectious diseases are very prevalent in Ghana, one realizes that by providing medical care to others, they also are protecting themself from acquiring some of those infectious diseases. Therefore, one comes to acknowledge the value of providing healthcare to those who normally could not afford it.  However, with more health insurance comes more patients.  There has to be a system to encourage more health providers to work in villages and provide care in remote areas.  The quality of patient care can be improved by decreasing the provider to patient ratio.  If we increase the number of patients, we must also have ways of increasing the number of clinicians. These are lessons that seem very relevant in our out society as the health care debate continues.

The final lesson we took away from our time in Elmina was that of living what one teaches.  After we presented the lectures on nutrition and exercise, a lot of the health workers commented on how they began to go jogging in the mornings, or cut out cookies from their diets.  I was left with the impression that to be able to tell the patient how to practice good nutrition, the provider must first be aware of his or her own habits, and realize how hard habits are to change, but that change is possible.  I know that those who made the changes in their own lives will then be able to teach their own patients wholeheartedly and with more sincerity. When I would hear the health workers discuss how they have transformed their personal lives after our lectures, it was evident that we were making an impact, just as they had made an impact in our way of viewing the world.  Together we can learn from, and teach, each other.