Public Misconceptions and Health Delivery in Ghana
When society decides to focus its energies on trivial and non productive issues, the result is self destruction. Does anybody have an idea what the mortality rate in Ghana looks like? Anyway, we cannot even trust the white elephant of a statistical service for any meaningful data so we don't even know how grave it is. While road accidents take a sizeable proportion of the causes of deaths in our dear country, one factor people do not even tend to look at is the misconceptions people have about health delivery. To the professionals, some of these misconceptions are very worrying while others are just funny. Here are a few of those misconceptions
The amount of medicine you take should be proportional to the level of pain. You meet people who say my headache was so serious I took six tablets of paracetamol
Related to the misconception above is the idea that you can sample medicines from various doctors and take them simultaneously to speed up the healing and get the best of the situation. Patients end up jumping from one hospital to another. At each stage, the facilities start a new process of taking the medical history of the patient. This is a critical situation because some patients end up taking incompatible medicines and shorten their lifespan. I believe this particular practice is a major cause of deaths. Most Ghanaians have even developed the habit of taking western type medicines alongside the local herbal mixtures.
There is no need for attending hospitals if you are not going to get an injection: infact most patients would visit another health facility if they are not given an injection at one facility. A doctor I spoke to said, psychologically, these patients would not get healed unless they get one form of injection or the other. For people who do not really need an injection but have that perception, he usually injects them with injection water to satisfy their beliefs.
A good medicine must act fast and vigorously. If you seat in a commercial vehicle and you hear people giving recommendations about a medicine, be cautious. Such medicine could end up making you 'run' faster than an airplane. People take medicines for one or two days, they don't see anything and they are going to the next hospital
If a medicine is good for one person, it is good for all. The first person goes to a doctor with his symptoms and is given some prescription. The next person experiences one or two of those symptoms and goes to the drug store for the same drug.
It is worrying to note that in the mist of these situations, the agency responsible for mass education (Ministry of Information) would waste taxpayers' money on 'Ghana then, Ghana now' advertisements. As for the media, if it is not Rawlings' roof which is leaking, then it is Kufuor's food which is getting cold. Even when they attempt to spend a little time on health education, they never bother to investigate the health needs of the people.
Recommendations to the Ministry of Health
In making these recommendations I wish to state that the situation is not as simple as I have stated them. Every public health worker is aware of these things and the effects they are posing on the citizenry.
Pupils at each level of their basic education should be taught basic pharmacology. Additionally all media advertisements for various medicines should include the basic pharmacology of the drug as well as the side effects and contra indications.
Churches and religious groups must organize regular health talks.
Ghana health Service must develop a comprehensive system of taking medical history of patients and making it available to any health facility a patient might visit.
The ministry should create an agency to coordinate the activities of herbal medicine practitioners. It is not just enough for them to be part of an association and get clearance from Centre for Scientific Research into Plant medicine (which even lacks the necessary capacity to vigorously authenticate those medicines).
Lastly, laws regulating pharmaceutical stores and dispensary units must be examined critically. I think the current situation is too open