Dr. Koku Awooner-Williams shakes hands with Gregory Ghent at the opening of the crate containing the operating room microscope, April 27, 2007.  Photo: Jim Phillips of the Population Council

On April 27th, a four hour celebration and program (called a durbar) was held partly to mark the safe arrival of the operating room microscope donated by Village Relief Foundation to the Nkwanta Health Development Centre in the remote Eastern Volta region of Ghana. There were numerous speeches and prayers in both the English and Twi languages, along with energetic drumming and dancing. VRF board member Gregory Ghent, one of several guests of honor, participated in the dancing. Also on hand were two doctors from Kenya who are observing the Ghana Health Services, particularly the highly successful Nkwanta clinic, in hopes of providing similar services in their homeland.

At the durbar, Dr. Koku, head of the clinic, and Dr. Elias Sory, Director General for Ghana Health Services, praised VRF and its partners for their generosity, noting the determination and effort it took to get the large, delicate microscope to this remote part of Ghana. Dr. Koku described the gift as “a miracle, an answer to our prayers”. He said that last year he had told his staff how helpful such a microscope would be for delicate head operations like cataract surgeries. Shortly thereafter Village Relief Foundation offered him a microscope. He expects to be using it in the operating room for many years to come.

Thanks to the new OR microscope, the Nkwanta clinic will hold an eight-day cataract surgery camp in July during which doctors from Ghana's main teaching hospital will perform at least 200 cataract surgeries.

VRF will continue to support the Nkwanta Health Development Centre. Mosquito nets for the hospital beds are a  priority need. Dr. Koku told Gregory Ghent that patients who stay overnight at the clinic sometimes leave with malaria for lack of bednets.

For an introduction to Dr. Koku and the Nkwanta clinic, and details about the microscope, please see article below.

Village Relief Donates
OR Microscope to
Rural Clinic in Ghana

Dr. John Koku Awooner-Williams
and the Nkwanta portable clinic

Two years ago Village Relief Foundation received a donation of two working operating room microscopes. Not your everyday lab microscopes, these are large, complicated pieces of operating room machinery for delicate operations requiring a close-up view of the small area being treated. Last year we sent one to a rural hospital in Guatemala. We are now pleased to announce that with the help of Robert Miller of the Population Council, and Medical Assistance Programs (MAP) International, the second is on its way to the Nkwanta Clinic in the Eastern Volta region of Ghana, where it will be maintained and used for detailed operations for years to come.

The Nkwanta Clinic cares for 170,000 people from 216 communities, with a staff of four physicians and nurses, presided over by Dr. John Koku Awoonor-Williams. Dr. Awooner-Williams has been with the Nkwanta clinic since 1978. He has received a special medal from the government of Ghana for his contribution to healthcare delivery, and earlier this year was honored by the World Medical Association as an outstanding physician. He was profiled in “The Caring Physicians of the World,” wherein it's noted that Dr. Awoonor-Williams was a young physician who accepted the challenge to work in a deprived area with no telephone, no proper water system and other severe constraints, but over the past 20 years has managed to vastly improve services in the district.  Before the extension of electricity to Nkwanta, he was known as “the doctor who operated on patients using lanterns.” He acknowledges that he draws his inspiration from the goodwill of the people he sees. 

Board member Gregory Ghent will visit the Nkwanta Clinic in December.