Emmanuel Omari-Siaw (left) from Ghana and Melody Shumba from Zimbabwe display two cups of tea made from Chinese herbs in December 2014. The two students studied traditional Chinese medicine in Jiangsu University. Photo: IC

China's goal of providing high-quality and affordable cardiac surgery to Ghanaians and helping to establish a cardiac center in the country is progressing gradually.

Dr Yaw Adu-Boakye, a cardiologist at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), is among a bevy of medical practitioners who have received training in China and are now applying their knowledge to save lives in their homeland.

Adu-Boakye, who has completed the first part of a one-year course at Guangdong General Hospital's Cardiovascular Institute, is among a team from the institute who are currently conducting surgeries at KATH in Kumasi, Ghana's second largest commercial city.

Sponsored training for Ghanaian medical workers in Guangdong Province aims to pump up the capacity of the surgeons to respond to cardiac cases across the central and northern part of the West African country.

The training Adu-Boakye is receiving in China, will help him become a specialist in pacemaker installation and Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI), a non-surgical technique for treating obstructive coronary artery disease.

His immediate plan after his return to Ghana is to become actively involved with other experts to kick-start vibrant pacemaker programs locally, with the support of the local cardiac team at KATH.

"Currently I have the skills for the pacemakers and I am doing the PCI and I am hoping that after I have done that and return, I am going to start this in Ghana and somebody else might get an opportunity to do another area which probably I didn't do and then we can combine forces and I am sure we will be able to get to where we want to get to," Adu-Boakye told the Xinhua News Agency in an interview.

"And indeed that is why I am back here, after the six months of training, I am now coming to put my skill acquisition to work here. So what I will say is that people should look at KATH as the hub of pacemaker interventions in Ghana because we are beginning it here," said Adu-Boakye, who described his skill acquisition in China as enormous and his Chinese colleagues as "very receptive and accepting."

Professor Lin Chunying, a consultant cardiologist and leading member of the 12-member Chinese delegation working at KATH from July 6 to 24, hopes that more Ghanaian doctors will get further training in China to enhance their service abilities.

She was heartbroken to learn that some machines donated to KATH had to lie idle because of the absence of experts. "But now you have the skill and the machines so it is no problem for you now. So in the future the patients do not need to go to (Ghana's capital) Accra to get a pacemaker; they can do it in Kumasi," she told Xinhua.

Dr Huang Jinsong, a senior consultant cardiac surgeon says with the right support, Ghanaian doctors can save more lives in Ghana.

The Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute is also helping build a cardiology center at KATH.

Xinhua


Newspaper headline: Heartfelt friendship