Preventing Cancer for Women in Ghana

Dear Friends and Supporters,

First of all, we would like to thank you all again for your continued support of the cervical cancer screening and treatment program! This program will make such a huge difference to the lives of women in the Upper West Region of Ghana and we are so excited to begin it. Unfortunately, we’ve recently received some upsetting news in regards to the OBGYN physician at the Wa Regional Hospital who was to undertake the training of the nurses at the district hospitals and do the primary treatments for women referred to the Wa Regional Hospital. Dr. Fofie, the extremely dedicated and kind-hearted OBGYN who helped inspire this project, suffered a car accident a few months ago. Fortunately, he is doing well and expects to make a full recovery. However, he suffered significant eye damage and is still making progress on his recovery. We have been in communication since finding out about his accident and in his most recent update this past week he told us “[I] write to say [I] am really getting better as the left eye is seeing well while the right has shown considerable progress.” Although its possible Dr. Fofie may still need a cornea transplant, we sincerely hope he is able to make a full recovery quickly without needing surgery.

While Dr. Fofie continues his recovery, the Wa Regional Hospital has been recruiting a new OBGYN. On the advice of Dr. Fofie, we are waiting to purchase the supplies until the OBGYN has arrived and is established at the hospital or until Dr. Fofie is able to resume work if his recovery progresses quickly enough.  As soon as a new OBGYN is hired and in place at the hospital, our first purchases with the funds you’ve all so generously donated will be the diathermy machine and cryotherapy sets as these are the most urgently needed to begin treating women for cervical cancer. 

When I first told Dr. Fofie that we had successfully completed the Open Challenge and let him know how much we have raised so far he replied with “Oh that is very exciting to hear about the progress you have made up there!” In spite of his accident, he remains extremely motivated to get the cervical cancer program up and running and we are too. We earnestly hope that our next update will be to let you all know that we have been able to purchase the first set of supplies for the program and that soon we will begin hearing about the specific women this program has benefited. We will continue to keep you updated on the status of the program and to continue fundraising for the cost of the additional equipment needed, so that as soon as an OBGYN is in place at the Wa Regional Hospital, we will be able to fully supply them with all of the equipment necessary to begin the first the cervical cancer screening and treatment program in the Upper West Region.

Thank you for your patience and continued support! As always we are open to comments, questions, or suggestions and you can reach me directly at director@medplusconnect.org.

Thank you,

Anna Finestone

Project Manager

Executive Director, MedPLUS Connect