Welcome to Ghana
The time has come! We were able to start our journey to Ghana on Monday thanks to a good preparation regarding the entry regulations during Corona times. After a long flight we landed safely in Accra and were warmly welcomed by Beatrice. She made our entry into the African bustle a bit easier. And so the next day we were already sitting in the cooled (!) bus to Kumasi. In Kumasi we still had time to visit the market before we were picked up the next day by the head of the technical department of HFH Berekum and a driver.
After a three-hour drive, we arrived at Holy Family Hospital (HFH) in Berekum around noon on Wednesday. At the beginning, the director of the hospital Sister Reena welcomed us. Afterwards we got to know the technicians of the hospital and could make first contacts during a common lunch. The group is really super nice and very concerned that we are doing well. We quickly came up with our project topic: the TeoG Swift app. The technicians already had a lot of questions about their long-awaited maintenance tool.
So today (Thursday) we started directly with the introduction to the app. We transformed the chapel into a conference room and used a beamer to present the web interface of the app. After all technicians had their own account for the smartphone app, we used an example device (thanks to the projector) to explain the process for creating a new device. Unfortunately, a couple of errors occurred at first, which is why Luise had for an emergency phone call with Julian (Developer of TeoG Swift). Meanwhile, I explained the rest of the features of the smartphone app and then, in collaboration with the technicians, divided the barcode stickers for invetarization for each hospital department. This ensures that within a department, the sticker numbers are distributed in ascending numerical order. This means, for example, that all the equipment from 555 to 573 is in the dialysis department.
After this more or less successful morning, we had a good portion of Fried Rice for lunch…yummy 🙂 Afterwards we got a little tour around the hospital. First we inspected the incinerator. This was fixed three years ago by our predecessor project, but exploded in July 2021 due to incorrect operation. In the meantime, they have rebuilt it, but it is out of service. After detailed documentation via photos, we went through a few departments before being accompanied to the local market to buy some groceries for the next few evenings.
All in all, a successful start into the very hot Ghana and the different culture. We have already had many warm encounters and look forward to many more in the coming weeks! See you soon 🙂
Thanks for reading! Meda w’ase! (= Thank you in Twi) 🙂
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Text: Katharina Mai