Structuralhealing

China supports capacity building to help Africa develop sustainable health systems

DOCTOR Yaw Adu-boakye puts his heart into his work. The Ghanaian cardiac specialist has spent the past year as part of a medical practitioners group receiving skills training in China and is now ready to give back what he learned at home.

Adu-boakye, who practices medicine at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi, Ghana, was based at the Guangdong General Hospital’s Cardiovascular Institute since November 2015, being trained as a specialist in pacemakers.

In July Adu-boakye returned briefly to Ghana, along with other Ghanaian doctors, to work with a 12-member team of Chinese cardiac experts from the Institute to perform open heart surgeries on four patients and implant pacemakers on five others at KATH.

“After months of training, I returned temporarily to put my skills acquisition to work here [in Ghana],” said Adu-boakye, who hopes to set up a local pacemaker program with other Ghanaian cardiac specialists. lar disease risk factors in the Ghanaian communities” in four of the country’s regions.

“It will help to identify risk factors of heart or blood vessel diseases in communities and provide timely support and treatment systems,” said Owusu.

As one of the demonstration projects supported by China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), this project aims to enhance the capacity of the Ghanaian surgeons to respond to cardiac cases and help address the public health challenges across the country.

“In order to pool our strengths and specialties and promote cooperation, 20 Chinese and African hospitals from each side will be linked through the sister hospital initiative,” said Feng Yong, Deputy Director General of NHFPC’S Department of International Cooperation at the Innovation of International Medical Aid Seminar, part of the 2016 Beijing Forum for Global Health held in August.