HEALTH AND WELLNESS
Individuals and families from low-income backgrounds frequently face significant challenges to wellness. We join forces with partners and communities to find innovative solutions that encompass the whole picture of an individual's health.
HEALTH & WELLNESS
Every child deserves the opportunity to grow up healthy. Because the social drivers of health like a family’s eating habits matter just as much as access to quality care, we help communities tap into a variety of resources that promote their wellness. This makes it easier for families to care for their health every day.
TRANSFORMING HEALTHCARE IN GHANA
With subsidized health insurance schemes, Ghana suffers on both an individual and national level lack of hospital funding. Hospitals and clinics are pushed to their limit to care for their patients on extremely limited resources, often missing life-saving medications and important equipment’s.
Even in the advanced hospitals in the city of Greater Accra and among others, a distinct lack of safe, clean medical equipment makes even simple procedures potentially life-Threatening. With no medication for pain and shortage of beds, critically ill patients are often left in undignified and agonizing conditions.
HOSPITALS IN CRISIS
For both children and adults with serious conditions, the right medical equipment and care play a crucial role in giving them the best chance of recovery and healing. Lack of money and resources means that healthcare professionals in Ghana are often unable to give patients the required treatment - even if they are aware of what exactly should be done. Lack of working surgical devices and apparatus means that patients often need to be transferred miles for basic surgeries, and those who are too ill to be moved have no choice but to do without it. Medication for pains and anesthetics are very expensive and hard to access in Ghana, hence greater proportion of patients do not receive the right medication to improve their condition.
Maternity wards and children’s wards are often the hardest hit by lack of funding and equipment. With lack of a good number of beds and rooms, laboring women are forced to give birth in wards with close to or more than 10 women. In some cases, they end up giving birth on the floor. Without enough sterile needles and proper surgical equipment, the risk of maternal and neonatal mortality increases in number.
Maternity wards and children’s wards are often the hardest hit by lack of funding and equipment. With lack of a good number of beds and rooms, laboring women are forced to give birth in wards with close to or more than 10 women. In some cases, they end up giving birth on the floor. Without enough sterile needles and proper surgical equipment, the risk of maternal and neonatal mortality increases in number.
THE IMPACT ON KIDS
Malnutrition and poor development in early life is a significant contributing factor to life-threatening illnesses among children. Every aspect of a child’s health needs to be frequently checked to keep them safe – their muscle and bone development. Their cardiac and respiratory health, their teeth and gums, and any other concerns that may arise. Children in the Western world are given health checks from the moment of their birth, but in the case of most African Children Especially in Ghana, they mostly miss out.
During the rainy season, hospitals are filled with children and elderly suffering from malaria and water-borne diseases due to polluted drinking water in their villages. Life-saving anti-malaria drugs such as quinine rapidly fall into short supply, and doctors have to be locked within the line in choosing which patients to treat and who not to. Children end up losing their lives from illnesses that could be treated and this is a result of the existing and rising nature of poverty. Without access to anti-retroviral drugs, HIV-positive children are at risk from minor illnesses and affections.
Children in remote and rural areas are impacted most, as clinics are often miles from their villages and cannot be accessed easily. Rural clinics also run out of supplies, preventing them from giving local children and their caregivers much-needed check-ups. Rural clinics, or “bush hospitals”, are frequently missing even the most basic equipment such as stethoscopes and blood pressure monitors. Without the tools to provide the community, hundreds of children Live in danger
OUTREACH FOR HOSPITALS
Bright Future Aid is responding to the urgent health needs of communities wherever we can. Our health outreach program works in dual ways, first by providing health equipment to hospitals, clinics, and specialist health services, and secondly by empowering communities to have better control and awareness of their health through first aid kits and education.
We are working with several clinics and hospitals in the Greater Accra Region, Eastern Region, Volta Region, Northern Region, and further afield. Many of the hospitals we visit are suffering from significant shortages of medication, equipment, and financial support, leaving them inadequately prepared to deal with the needs of the community. Our outreach provides clinics and hospitals across Ghana with sterile excess equipment and apparatus from the US, all of which are safe and ready to use. The equipment is provided for free, which avoids much of the overhead charges and costs which prevents hospitals from abstaining from this equipment themselves.
We are providing hospitals in Ghana with:
Safe and sterile equipment for immediate care, such as bandages, dressings, stitches, and needles.
Monitoring equipment for wards and clinics, such as stethoscopes, blood pressure monitors, thermometers, and scales.
Additional funding for the development of a hospital or clinic, such as fundraising for beds, rooms, larger-scale equipment, or specialist services for maternity of children’s wards
COMMUNITY HEALTH OUTREACH
Alongside our contribution to hospitals and clinics in Ghana, we are also providing equipment and support for communities to take care of themselves. In rural areas, even a simple injury can lead to serious infection, and what without access to nearby clinics such infections could prove fatal. Providing a first aid kit can make available the things they need during emergency situations – such as sterile bandage and dressings, pain medication, gloves and masks.
By providing first aid to kits to remote Ghanaian villages, we also have the opportunity to educate them on how best to utilize them during emergency. Through teaching children and adults how to take care of themselves when they are injured or unwell, Ghanaian communities can be empowered to prevent health issues from becoming life-threatening.
Posters and leaflets distributed to families and schools, form part of our health sensitization programme providing visual information on Adolescent reproductive health, hygiene for prevention of contaminated food, caring of open wounds, and contraception for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. By gaining the trust of the community we work with, we can extend barriers and stereotypes about health, and give everyone a better opportunity to stay well throughout their lives
HOW CAN YOU HELP
We are looking to expand our health outreach to encompass more clinics and communities, and further our missions in reducing the threat of deadly illnesses in Ghana. You can help if you or someone you know works in healthcare and has access to viable equipment we can send out, visit our How to Help page or contact us.
Donations of equipment and monetary contributions are equally vital to improve the health outreach we provide – with more funding, we will gain further opportunities to save the lives of children living of poverty. $50 is enough to provide one first aid kit to a rural community, but any amount is hugely beneficial. No child deserves to live without access to basic healthcare in their community - so join us today in making a difference.