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The doors have been put in place. Now, for the first time, lights have gone up in the building, making it easier for people to see. And while progress may not be going as quick as Dr. Kwabena Donkor had hoped when he left Farmville last year, it’s also easy to hear the happiness in his voice, as a much needed project gets closer to completion.

Talking about the project itself seems a bit morbid. We’re describing construction of a mortuary, a building going up in a rural village in Ghana.

But to be clear, there is a serious need for this kind of project. Why? There’s nothing similar in any one direction for at least 30 miles. And in this part of rural Ghana, families struggle to pick up loved ones on their own. Donkor gives an example of a period recently with several deaths. One of them had been a lady. Now if this patient died in Farmville, Donkor said, she would have been in a private room and then the morgue. But at his Amayami Memorial Hospital, the ladies ward is spread out in one room, with four beds, set up dormitory style. And so yes, that means if women are in the other beds, they had to share space with a corpse.

So the staff is calling family, asking them to collect the body and the family is responding, saying they don’t have a way to do that.

And therein lies what Donkor says is a common problem in the region. Often, people don’t have a bicycle, motorcycle or money to pay to have their relatives brought home. And so, the body can sit for a while at the hospital.

“Roughly 20 hours pass and this driver pulls up on a motorcycle, with a passenger carrying a blanket,” Donkor said. “They wrap the body in the blanket, put it between them on the motorcycle and drive away.”

And that, he said, is one of the best case scenarios. It can take days or weeks for families to come pick up their loved ones. In the current situation, that doesn’t exactly work out well for anyone.

So here we are. The need is great and progress is being made, be it at a slower pace than Donkor was hoping for. All in all, it’s not a bad situation.

“When I left (for the U.S.), at the end of June, we had begun to install doors,” Donkor said. “The main doors have already been put in, both the front and back. We have finished all the flooring work, all the floors have been done. We have contracted with an electrician, so now there’s lights in the building.”

WORKING THROUGH SETBACKS

“We’re working hard, but there were a couple of setbacks,” Donkor said. “The main was the roof. The roof that we had spent so much time and so much money on, when the rainfall season started, it started leaking. We had to spend money and time taking the whole roof off and then replacing it.”

On the positive side, he said, the roof on the new soon-to-be mortuary isn’t leaking anymore. They were also able to connect a water supply to the building directly, before he had to leave for the United States. So, progress is being made.

“But at least $3,000 of our money has been spent doing all of those things, with several months of work included,” Donkor added.

It’s been a labor of love for Donkor, the latest in a series of projects he’s taken on for the region.

Donkor was born in Kumasi, Ghana, the son of a local chief. As he grew up, the former Farmville resident graduated from the University of Ghana Medical School and became a general doctor. Soon after, he arrived in the United States at age 29 to further his studies in medicine at Tulane University Medical School in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was here that he was inspired to become a pulmonologist.

It was then his mother in Ghana fell ill with what tribal healers referred to as a spiritual sickness. Once he got her to a regional hospital in Kumasi, the doctors found a very physical cause: a ‘tropical parasitic infection’, caused by a hookworm. But while she recovered enough to go home, a couple days later Donkor’s mother passed on.

This was the beginning of the Ama Nyame Memorial Medical Center, as Donkor wanted to make sure no one else had to go through that. In 2004, he bought land near Kumasi and turned it into the current medical facility.

During his 25 years in Farmville, Donkor served as medical director for Central Southside Community Hospital’s Respiratory Department, helped establish a bronchoscopy lab, founded the hospital’s Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program and founded both the Sleep Lab and Sleep Clinic. He also worked as the hospital’s chief of staff for a time, as a mentor to (Longwood’s) College of Osteopathic Medicine students and medical advisor to Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs).

WORKING ON MOVING FORWARD

Donkor gave that up to return to Ghana and help people through his medical facility. Two years ago, he started work on the new mortuary, after a request came in from a tribal delegation. He had the land, deciding to use part of a parcel bought 15 years ago. He just needed supplies and the money to buy them. And that was his focus in 2023, gathering all the needed supplies. With all that in hand, he went forward in the fall of 2023 to assemble the project. But, as he found, that was a challenge in and of itself.

So what’s needed now? More than anything, he finds himself in need of patience. He’s purchased the equivalent of 5,000 square feet of aluminum sheets. These are required for covering the wooden structures in the mortuary where the corpses will be placed until burial. Those will be shipped, with the hope they’ll arrive in Ghana within the next 8 to 10 weeks.

He’s also found someone to work as an OBGYN consultant in the hospital, another desperate need in the rural country. This person, who was one year ahead of Donkor in medical school, is in vacation in Canada right now. But when he gets back, the hospital will be one step closer to a full staff.

That’s why, even with all the stresses coming with overseeing construction projects and the challenges of running a medical facility, Donkor is looking at the positives, of which there are many. He’s even at a point where if nurses want to take part of their vacation and spend it in Ghana, working at his hospital, Donkor can now take them on, be it for however long.

“We are blessed,” Donkor said. “Things are coming together. Doors are opening. We just need to take it one step at a time.”

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

If you want to help Donkor with his project or just learn more about the challenges and positives involved, there’s a chance coming up this week to do that. He’ll be speaking at Piedmont Senior Resources on Thursday, Aug. 1. Overall, he’ll be there from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., first giving a presentation about his medical facility, the mortuary and all needs included therein. After that, he’ll take questions from the audience and there will be a period for people to donate, or volunteer time, if they prefer that instead.