Report from Dery Tuopar Following visit to Ghana

May 25th – June 7th 2009.

Mon 25^th May – Arrived Accra at 8pm and stayed overnight in my own house.

Tues 26^th May – Departed Accra for Kumasi where I met Luke & Chris and we planned the trip.

Weds 27^th May – Departed Kumasi at 7am and made a brief stop at Techiman. Eventually arrived in Wa at 4pm for a comfort break. On to Nadowli, stopped at Queen of Peace High school and met with Sister Justina Dery, head teacher, (see photo right) to ensure she has received the food container from Jacobs Well. Photos taken.
Arrived Nandom 8pm.

Thurs 28^th May – contents of container were off-loaded and sorted with the help of the local school children (see photo right). Items were cross-checked with an inventory to ensure delivery to the correct places: Jirapa, Nadowli and Nandom Hospitals.

Jirapa and Nadowli hospitals were only able to send pick up trucks and these were not big enough for all the goods provided, only the drugs. Dery had to organise transport (and pay for fuel). He used lorries returning to Accra from Burkina Faso, which were empty. Jirapa cost 150 Gh Cedes and Nadowli cost 100 Gh Cedes. Luke was busy taking photos throughout and delivering the goods to Nandom Hospital.

Fri 29^th May – Books were taken to Ko Sec and had a meeting with Blake, the American VSO teacher. Visited his new computer Laboratory, in which FREED(UK) have provided 3 computers. Travelled to Jirapa and Nadowli to ensure all goods had arrived and were accounted for.

St Josephs Orphanage Jirapa - An excellent job has been done by Joe and John, it has been very well painted. It is clean and has obviously improved – see photos. Only 15 children are resident at present but they are desperate for more Formula for the babies feed.
As you can see from the photograph, the children like to play and sleep on the floor in an effort to keep cool.

Sat 30^th May – Depart to Wa. Enquiries were made about the Zenuo Motel in Nandom where the group regularly stays. At this time it was closed and management has been put up for tender. Luke will follow this up with the Red cross in Ghana as they are the owners and Dery will enquire with the Red cross in the UK.

Feed back from Hospital: Work on the Kitchen is progressing with painting completed and tiling in progress. The kitchen is still not in full use – we are pushing for this to happen as soon as possible. To see more pictures of the new kitchen click here and you will be taken to a new page. It's OK, you can come back!

Significant improvements have been made to the rest of the hospital. The general surgical ward has been renovated. Our work is definitely making a difference and it looks like 2010 will be the first year the medical/nursing members of FREED(UK) will be able to work clinically. This is 4 years into a 5 year action plan! Refurbished general surgical ward Refurbished surgical ward.

However it is not all good news: The hospital laboratory desperately needs a machine for U&E’S – a very basic blood test.
Also very sadly, another FREED(UK) sponsored nurse has died at Nandom Hospital due this time to undiagnosed diabetes.

Feed back from Ko School: While delivering the books to the library it was found to be locked. The teachers claim that they need a Librarian to prevent books being taken and not returned. No improvement was found in the general condition and much work needs to be done: Dery went to the District Education office to discuss these matters and found the offices locked at noon on Friday – this was reported. Work has not been carried out at the Kindergarten (shelves paid for before we left) and the carpenter could not be found!