Why are Ghanaians volunteering to die?

The day I saw my son's nose discharging freely on a Saturday, I knew I had to act before it disrupted my Monday. As a single parent, the least disruption to my routine can throw my life out of balance and have my whole world coming apart.

If whatever was causing the 5-year-old’s nose to stream degenerated into something serious, such as fever, malaria, typhoid, etc., these would require that I cut time for work, church, etc. to stay home and nurse him after hospital sessions.

As crude as this might sound, I don't have the luxury of staying away from any of my schedules, even if it is to nurse my son.

Based on that, I decided to check him in at the clinic in my neighbourhood while it was still the weekend. At least, if the rhinorrhea turned to point to something much more sinister, with his current high energy level, he was not going to be admitted. At worst, he would be on medications while still going to school and I can also go to work. Something interesting happened when I got to the hospital.

I decided that while I was at the hospital, why not also check my Full Blood Count (FBC). I had not done it in a while. This test indicates the levels of one's White Blood Cells, Red Blood Cells, Platelets, etc.

Doctors use this simple test, which requires a blood sample, to tell if one system is developing serious medication conditions such as cancer, the immune system being weak, having a viral or bacterial infection, and the need for further tests to ensure that there is not an organ failure.

To be as clear as a bell, the hospital attendance was for Elijah, not me. That is where I was wrong.

After the examinations, it turned out that the boy was safe. Elijah just had a ‘runny nose’. Nothing more. He was given saline nose drops and vitamin C and told to go and sin no more.

It was my situation that was a grave source of concern. Even though I had no signs of ill health at the time of going to the hospital. No sign.

To my shock, my blood was about to run out. More concerning was my immune system, which was at its lowest ebb. As if that was not disturbing enough, I had multiple infections, including malaria. Equally troubling was the fact that I needed a hospital with advanced laboratories and expertise to conduct further tests to either recommend more treatments or clear me of other medical complications. I left the hospital at midnight with bags full of drugs and the condition I picked from there, shock.

With my son by my side, hopping now and then, and finding reason to comment on everything on the streets on our way home, it was as if he had taken me to the hospital and not the other way around.

I have heard stories of how some people passed on even though they presented no symptoms of ill health before their demise.

There is this story of an elder in my church, a branch of the THE CHURCH OF PENTECOST of the New Achimota District. Ronaldo, as he was affectionately known, was perhaps the best Carpenter you can engage to put a roof on your house.

After work one day, he watched TV and had great conversations with the family during meals. The dawn of the following morning he was presumed dead, this was later confirmed when the family rushed him to the Amasaman hospital.

The wife stumbled on this unfortunate development because his husband had not woken up by 4 a.m. that morning to catch up on his favourite BBC news program as he usually does. Aside, from the widow, when I visited the family with my pastor, we saw that Ronaldo left behind several kids still in basic school and an uncompleted house.

There is one other situation I witnessed personally.

I was at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital in the year 2019 offering support for my late wife who was being managed for Leukemia (Cancer of the blood).

This gentleman was one day brought in. He was on his phone the whole time and playing with most of the female nurses. I nearly picked up a fight with the hospital for bringing a male patient to a female ward. The next morning, he was dead.

The nurses were devasted. I was horrified, to say the least. I was told he was dealing with Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). This is a roaming clot in the blood that kills you once it blocks the vein sending blood to the heart. It does not have to give you pain. That was the case with this breadwinner until he passed on. What a loss to his children and widow.

On a personal level, I would not have known my late wife had cancer if I had not taken what looked like an unusually heavy flow of menses one evening seriously. She insisted I should not bother, given that I had just returned from work and was tired and had other commitments in church before the night was spent, but I insisted. I rushed her to the 37 Military Hospital that very moment.

Even though we responded promptly, the diagnosis itself took some three months to be confirmed. This was after working with the most advanced medical facilities and personnel this country has to offer. Read more on this in my book Dying Many Times: The Struggles of a Cancer Patient

I have heard of how people boast that they have not been to the hospital in many months and sometimes years. They claim to be as fit as a fiddle.

The saddest part of this conversation is not those who don't show up at the hospital because they don't have symptoms. It is those who knowingly ignore their symptoms. And stay away from the hospital.

There is this church leader I fellowship with who keeps suffering one serious illness after the other. Sometimes it can be several large boils that plague him, appearing at different parts of the body, including the head, armpit, etc.

Given the severity and the frequency, most of us concluded that he was under a form of demonic attack. But that was not so. Instead of seeing professionals anytime he got sick, he went to herbalists.

Even with my intervention he still did not. His recent excuse was that he is due for leave at work in a few days so he will see a doctor during that period. He has been on leave for some time now but has still not checked himself into a hospital. He lives in Accra and his herbalist is in a village in the Eastern region, yet he always makes time for that appointment.

The above three groups of persons are not the only people who take hospital appointments for granted.

There is also this other group. Those, who go to the hospital, are offered a plan to manage their condition and they abandon it midway or don't start at all.

I know somebody who was told after a head scan that a tumour needed to be removed urgently. This person never went back to the hospital. The person is not yet dead but is believing God for the tumour to vanish.

We also have those who have submitted to the hospitals and have been diagnosed with specific medical conditions that require them to modify their lifestyle such as meals, workload, etc. as part of the processes to manage the condition. They just do the opposite. The Blood Pressure patients don't take their medication and those dealing with obesity and at risk of hypertension go on with junk meals with careless abandon.

Finally, on this list, some don’t honour hospital appointments based on religion. This category has a general condescending posture towards people who seek medical care. Those who don’t visit the hospital often feel they are more blessed than those who do. They see persons who visit the hospital as persons who have little faith.

In fact, some religious groups pointedly frown on the use of orthodox medication. While there are religious practices that themselves pose enormous health concerns to their adherers.

While it is easy to point to traditional religious practices such as female genital mutilation and males who don't get circumcised because they come from royal lineages, we have a practice as dangerous as Christians who don't take blood transfusions and would rather have their members die out of low red cells.

My Church, the Church of Pentecost, came about because its founder, James McKeown, had been expelled from the Apostolic Church of the then-Gold Coast for seeking malaria treatment at the then-European Hospital located at Ridge, now known as the Greater Accra Hospital.

We should have a conversation another time about all that organised religion allows its devotees to submit themselves to, including eating what is outright poison, in the name of curing a malady rather than allowing a licensed physician to attend to them.

A recent study that "examines national trends in mortality rate and cause of death at health facilities in Ghana between 2014 and 2018" has this to say.

"Chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) were the leading cause of death in 2017 (25%) and 2018 (20%). This was followed by certain infectious and parasitic diseases (15% for both years) and respiratory infections (10% in 2017 and 13% in 2018). Among the NCDs, hypertension was the leading cause of death with 2,243 and 2,472 cases in 2017 and 2018. Other (non-ischemic) heart diseases and diabetes were the second and third leading NCDs. Septicaemia, tuberculosis, and pneumonia were the predominant infectious diseases. Regional variations existed in the cause of death. NCDs showed more urban-region bias while infectious diseases presented more rural-region bias."

From the data, the leading cause of death in Ghana is not acute situations that take its victims by surprise. Why do Ghanaians die from infections and lifestyle diseases?

The situation is perhaps not just a Ghanaian problem. Another data had this to offer.

"Data from the World Health Organization show that chronic disease is the major cause of premature death around the world, even in places where infectious diseases are rampant. The good news is that through effective behaviour change efforts, appropriate medical management, and systematic monitoring to identify new problems, chronic diseases and their consequences can often be prevented or managed effectively."

When I have had the opportunity to visit the hospitals, my interest has been getting a ringside view of what is happening in the emergency room (ER). The sad reality is that the majority of patients come to the hospital when it is too late for doctors to help them.

What I have just narrated is not because hospital professionals are inadequate or less trained to offer their services. It is also not because hospital bills are too high to be afforded by the average person. And neither is this situation attributable to fewer hospitals or those ill-equipped to function. This is a conversation we can have separately.

What is at am stake here is disregard and disinterest in prioritising one's health and taking advantage of existing infrastructure.

I remain grateful to God that my son’s ‘runny nose’ got me to the hospital at the right time, which saved my life.

End.

By Benjamin Akyena Brantuo.
He is an author, journalist, social worker, and communications consultant.
Reach him on kwakuakyenabrantuo@gmail.com