I join the doctor for his work in the clinic. We are sitting in a small room and patients come to be examined. The room is very crowded, there is almost no space for an old man to walk with his stick. But this is a teaching hospital. The doctor observes his young colleagues and gives them patients to examine while handling his own. Most patients do not come alone. They are accompanied by relatives who help them walk or translate. However, most patients don‘t talk much, they don‘t show their pain. They are not always talking in English, but as far as I understand, they are not complaining. Not even when they are told to go to a different hospital, a different town. They are sent away because the hospital in Tamale does not have the necessary equipment to treat them. But they accept. Many patients go to the traditional healers first. Maybe the hospital is far away or maybe they don‘t have clothes to dress up for their visit at the hospital. They only come to the hospital if the situation deteriorates. And there the doctor has to tell them to go even further, to the next town.
I talk to a nurse and he tells me they have to improvise a lot when treating patients due to the lack of equipment. He says it is stressful to work in the hospital because they don‘t have enough staff. When I visit the maternity ward and watch an operation, four persons are working on the patient. The anaesthetist, two doctors and a nurse. Ten additional nurses are watching.
The next day, the doctor comes to the theatre. He has five cases to do and the first should start at nine. It doesn‘t start until after ten. Nobody knows with what to begin or seems to care to get the place running. The anaesthetist won‘t come because the place has got no water. Then the power is shut down.
The nurses prepare a patient for an amputation, when we hear that an emergency is coming in. However, this information doesn‘t lead to any perceptible hurry. They stop working on their patient and sit down. Only when the bleeding woman is actually pushed into the room they work faster. One doctor impatiently asks for blood. There has been a car accident. The right leg is ripped open, I can see the muscles lying bare. The doctors and nurses get their mobiles out, make pictures and begin to talk about driving. ,The advantage of driving schools is that you learn about the signs.‘
