Ghanaians urged to sacrifice for nation's development

Nkawkaw, May 5, GNA - The Accra Metropolitan Catholic Archbishop-designate Most Reverend Charles Palmer-Buckle, has called on the country's professionals to emulate the sacrifices of Christian missionaries by contributing their quota towards national development. He said the expatriate missionaries left their countries in Europe to the then Gold Coast to work under difficult conditions to bring educational, religious, health and other social development to the people centuries ago.

Archbishop Palmer-Buckle, therefore expressed regret that the country's professionals, especially nurses and doctors who are supposed to serve the people in a much better improved conditions now, were leaving fore greener pastures abroad.

The Archbishop made the call at the Holy Family Hospital, Nkawkaw when 84-year-old Rev. Sister Defensora Van Gogh received the "Order of Orange" award conferred by Her Royal Highness, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, for her dedicated service to the poor and needy in the country for the past 50 years.

The Netherlands's Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Arie Van Der Weil, decorated Rev. Gogh on behalf the Queen. Archbishop Palmer-Buckle said the country would had made significant progress if the large number of Ghanaian professionals trained with the tax payers money had stayed to serve the people. Mr Weil read a citation that traced the missionary works of the award winner when she took her first vows to duty in Holland on July 2, 1948.

The Most Rev. George Kocherry, Apostolic Nuncio to Ghana, said he would recommend Rev. Sis. Gogh for a Papal award. The Medical Director of the Hospital, Dr Kwesi Amuzu, said Rev. Sis. Gogh was one of the pillars on which the hospital was built on.