A GNA Feature by Sepenyo Dzokoto

Ho, May 7, GNA - The Volta Region Division of the Ghana Medical Association's (GMA) notice that it would mark the Association's 50th year celebration with a clinical screening of citizens of Bomigo caused a stir.

It sent many especially those at GMA Headquarters ferreting out maps of Ghana. They failed to find the town on them and queried, jokingly if that community was in Togo or Benin.

Off-course the GMA could not go out of the country to screen people to mark its anniversary. Bomigo is in Ghana and in the Keta District. A post, in fact, an islet, surrounded by the salty waters of the Keta Lagoon.

It is about 146 kilometres from Ho, driving to Keta, onwards to Anloga and to Atorkor, then branching to Tunu for the about 15 minutes journey by boat to Bomigo.

Dr Kwabena Opoku-Adusei, Vice-President of the GMA, who joined seven other Doctors from the Volta Region on the trip, came in a suit, but took the coat off, rolled his trousers up to near knee level to walk through the Lagoon to join the boat.

"I knew we were going to the hinterland but did not know it was in the middle of nowhere," he told Journalists on the trip. Dr Opoku-Adusei lauded the trip as in line with the Association's decision that every Region picked a project that would bring healthcare delivery closer to the people.

Dr Gafatsi Normanyo, GMA Volta Division Chairman, said the thrust of the Association into Bomigo under the operation codenamed "Recover Forgotten Territories" was to put the "health of school children and adolescents" more strongly back on the national agenda.

For him, the notion that, the furtherer away one lived from the towns and cities, the dimmer one's chances of developing his full potential, were awful.

Dr Normanyo reflecting on the inadequacies suffered by these areas in health and education delivery said it was profoundly regrettable that the youth of these areas were left to waste away; whirling in cycles of poverty; ignorance and backwardness; unaffected by policy and forced to drift to the cities to be manipulated by the dangerous vicissitudes of urban life.

The expedition to Bomigo, therefore, Dr Normanyo stated was to bring the nation's conscience to bear on all these forgotten territories so that together "we enact policies that would bring a difference in their lives".

At the banks of the Lagoon, the site of life-jackets rejuvenated flagging spirits and one by one, all dropped into the boat powered by an outboard motor to the Islet, said to have begun as a settlement of a powerful shrine, Bomi, to whom people still flocked for spiritual help. Journalists' line of duty merged with the medical team as all carried baggage to trek the 15 minutes from the landing stage into Bomigo.

After health talks on Risks and Challenges to the Health of Children and Adolescents; Family and Health of Children and Adolescents, it was time for consultation.

Scores of people massed round five consulting tables to see the doctors while the three other tables were for blood pressure checks, tests for diabetes and then the pharmacy.

Analgesics; de-wormers; hypertension drugs; mineral and vitamin supplements and anti-malaria drugs among other drugs, estimated at about 5,000 Ghana Cedis were dispensed to the teeming crowd free of charge. Dr John Eleeza said the kids were mainly malnourished and had skin rashes.

Dr Atsu Seake-Kwawu said those who presented with high blood pressures were few. "Quite contented people, hardly any stress," he remarked.

However, Dr Winfred Ofusu, who saw the more elderly, said quite a number of them had high blood pressure. He said they were treated and referred to nearby health facilities for additional care.

After about four hours of consultations, during which 450 people were seen, the clinics closed and doctors on the expedition gasping from fatigue and satisfaction, carried bag and baggage for the journey back. All around Bomigo are mangroves. The soil is loose at some areas and clayey in some areas. The inhabitants are farmers, fishermen and also collect firewood for a living.

The only school there, founded by the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, is only up to class six. Junior High School students are ferried by boat to Anyanui, four kilometres across the lagoon everyday to school for a fare of 10 Ghana Pesewas a week.

In 2000, three female students drowned while going to school, when the commuter boat capsized. The Chief of the community is Togbe Akude II, whose plea to the Government is for some contraption to make travelling in and out of the area fluid and also a clinic so that the incident of seeing their sons and daughters die at the banks of the Lagoon while waiting for the commuter boat to ferry them to hospital to cease. "Life is dreary here, so our sons and daughters are eaten up by the cities especially Ashaiman and Tema, where many go and waste away," he said.

Mr Kofi Ahiabor, Keta Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), who was with the team hinted that some investors would be in the community soon to see what could be done with the vast clay deposits there.

The news at Bomigo is that in the grooves are he goats that procreate. The truth or otherwise of that claim occupied the team for some part of the journey back. Dr Normanyo dispatched back home with what could be a good anniversary flyer for the GMA:

"We have achieved so much in our 50-year history as an organization whose mandate goes beyond the welfare of doctors to the concerns and welfare of the people of Ghana".