He converted a van into a mobile clinical clinic. Now, he is bringing treatment to 1000’s in rural Ghana

He converted a van into a mobile clinical clinic. Now, he is bringing treatment to 1000’s in rural Ghana


Somerset, NJ
CNN
 — 

Expanding up in a compact village in southern Ghana, Osei Boateng watched many of his family members users and neighbors wrestle to entry standard well being care. In many regions of the place, it can choose hours to get to the closest healthcare facility.

Boateng stated several people today lost their lives owing to preventable or treatable illnesses. His grandmother and aunt were amongst them.

“My grandmother was a pretty significant aspect of my lifestyle,” claimed Boateng, 28. “It was pretty tough when we dropped her, and it was due to some thing that could have been quickly prevented. That is the painful element of it.”

The average life expectancy in Ghana is 64 yrs aged, and the most typical causes of death are mainly treatable problems, this sort of as malaria, stroke, and respiratory bacterial infections.

Feeling an urgent call to enable, Boateng decided he would make it his life’s mission to deliver wellbeing treatment to remote communities in Ghana. He worked challenging in faculty and got a scholarship to research biology at Cornell College in the US.

“I was studying a good deal about hypertension and diabetes and things that men and women back home did not know they could die from,” reported Boateng, who eventually acquired his master’s in Health care Administration. “Early screening wasn’t an alternative for us.”

He understood that instruction and preventative health care was missing in many distant places of Ghana. Yet telling people today to go to the health care provider wasn’t the solution.

“I realized that these people don’t have the luxury of time,” Boateng claimed. “The food that they place on the table is established by what they offer in the market. If I convey to them to go to the clinic, there is no way they are likely to go.”

Boateng wanted to come across a way to clear away these limitations to health and fitness treatment obtain and instruction. He started out his nonprofit, OKB Hope Foundation, and in 2021, he converted a van into a cell doctor’s place of work and started out bringing well being care instantly to individuals in have to have.

A several situations a 7 days, the mobile clinic and healthcare crew vacation long distances to distant communities in Ghana and provide free regimen professional medical treatment.

CNN Hero Osei Boateng's Hope Health Van is designed like a medical clinic for seeing and treating patients.

On every trip, Boateng’s workforce is made up of a nurse, physician’s assistant, health practitioner, and operation assistant. In the van, they can operate basic labs like bloodwork and urinalysis as properly as prescribe and give medicines.

“It’s like a a single-stop shop for folks,” mentioned Boateng, adding that most of the people today they see have one particular wellbeing issue or yet another.

Due to the fact its start, Boateng claims the Hope Well being Van has served additional than 4,000 Ghanaians throughout far more than 45 rural communities who in any other case really don’t have quickly available health-related care.

To complement the cellular clinic, Boateng’s corporation has also trained 20 volunteers to serve as neighborhood health and fitness advocates. They look at people’s vitals, these as blood strain and glucose degrees, and supply the health care staff with well timed details for examining how to go ahead with care and treatment, specially for people whose health is at threat.

Boateng, left, and two health advocates from his organization check in on a community member.

“We are empowering community neighborhood customers to be capable to present treatment to their individual group members,” Boateng said.

To day, the wellbeing advocates have aided far more than 1,000 men and women.

In his attempts to offer primary medical treatment and conserve life, Boateng recognized that psychological health and fitness was also an challenge he needed to deal with.

“In Ghana, if you display psychological health and fitness signs or symptoms or even if you express that you are depressed, you are found as a weak individual,” he mentioned.

For Boateng, it is crucial to address the total man or woman. Past yr, he and his firm introduced an initiative to combine mental health and fitness into their care and destigmatize finding help. They also discuss at faculties to clearly show young generations there is no disgrace in using care of your mental well being.

Boateng's organization does outreach to high schools as part of its efforts to combat the stigma surrounding mental health.

Boateng has large programs for the future. He hopes to expand to provide far more consistent and superior-high-quality medical care not only to people living in remote places of Ghana but in other countries as properly.

“I consider that our design can be replicated in Sub-Saharan Africa,” he claimed. “So, the purpose is to really build strategic partnerships and get extra mobile health and fitness vans for the communities or the areas that we want to provide.”

Boateng has long gone all in on his OKB Hope Foundation, lately quitting his task to dedicate his time to bringing wellbeing care to his dwelling state. But for him, the sacrifices are effectively value the reward.

“Words cannot explain the experience that you get delivering care for anyone who if not would not be alive if your cellular health van wasn’t there.”

Want to get associated? Look at out the OKB Hope Basis internet site and see how to aid.

To donate to OKB Hope Basis by using GoFundMe, click on in this article