In October 2009, Ghana Homeopathy Project, with the help of a £1,000 donation from Sheaf Trust plus £1,000 raised from individual donors, was able to fund a training programme in Ghana. Two Indian homeopathic doctors with 30 years of experience in practice, Dr Kalyan Bhattacharyea and Dr Kalishankar Bhattacharyea, had volunteered to go to Ghana for 1 month to train Ghanian homeopaths . The Indians had been impressed with the Ghanians commitment to homeopathy, when GHP  were able to pay for the airfare for our project apprentice homeopath Emperor to study on a 2 week clinical training programme in India.

Overall, this was an incredibly successful trip. We began with a 10 day training programme in Accra, attended by 18 students. We then travelled to a village area where GHP student Pastor John has a small clinic. Once there we saw 50 new patients, working from dawn to dusk. Our trainee homeopaths Emperor and Pastor John acted as translators and so were able to learn from the clinical setting. The village tour continued for three more days, ending up in Mafi Seva clinic, where Emperor is based. We treated approximately one hundred clients during these days.  Next we travelled north to Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city, where GHP have another clinic and work together with our Ghana partner Bonsu Boaten, who has trained as a homeopath in UK. 16 people attended a 4 day training programme there.

The Indians were accompanied by GHP UK co-ordinator Linda Shannon and volunteer Richard Pitt. Richard has 25 years experience in practice and gave up his job as Director of the Pacific Academy, San Francisco, to spend a sabbatical in Ghana
This high profile trip, with the Indians, together with Richard staying for longer and the specific skills Richard brings to the project was met by a great response from the Ghanian side and I really felt we were working together and that the project is becoming more mature generally.

We all attended government level meetings with TAMD (Traditional and Alternative Medicine Directorate) to discuss how we could further the development of homeopathy as a profession in Ghana. GHP was invited to continue working with the department to develop educational programmes.  Richard is very experienced in curriculum design (see Richard's CV) and had been invited to continue working with Mr Akekpo, the Chief Registrar at TAMD. As a result of this latest trip we are now working on a 1 year training programme in homeopathy which will be accredited within Ghana.
The Indians were able to talk about the Indian situation where homeopathy is fully supported by government and indeed many homeopaths are government employees. They were wonderful ambassadors for homeopathy!

We then began our tour of the villages, heading to Pastor John's clinic first. Here are some impressions  from the trip.
....A remote village area close to the Togo border. Pastor John, our student, wants to start a clinic there. We arrived and I expected to spend the night in a mud hut, but he led us to a comfortable newly built house owned but not yet occupied, by one of his parishioners. After a good sleep our merry band of homeopaths, Drs. Kalyan and Kalishankar, Isabelle, Richard, Emperor, Pastor John and I, walked to the big half built church where we would hold the first clinic in this area. The patients were already arriving in their brightly colored clothes prepared to wait all day to be seen by the doctors. We worked until 9 p.m., and saw 50 new patients. Dr Kalishankar explained the pathologies, and we couldn't have had a better learning experience in clinical diagnosis and the Indian's prescribing and case taking methods. Many sad stories were told by the women, left by husbands who took other wives, having to live together with the wives who had children and were favored therefore.

One big older lady came with a massive ulcer, punched out and about 2-3 inches in diameter, smelling terrible. But she was quite oblivious to this and happily chatted on her mobile phone between questions. Was it leprosy? diabetic ulcer?- no she was too strong (Dr Kalishankar) - later we found out that there is a bacteria in some areas of Ghana that is very resistant to antibiotics and produces these ulcers. Often the foot must be amputated. We gave our remedy but also referred the lady to a suitable hospital for further diagnosis. One elderly man came who had been diagnosed with TB but had not continued his medication for the correct amount of time.  One side of his chest had completely collapsed. As Dr Kalishankar had recently retired from his post as WHO TB Control Officer for West Bengal, he was able to give excellent advice alongside the homeopathic prescriptions.

Each patient paid a small sum of 4 Ghana cedis, as we want to make Pastor Johns clinic sustainable in the future. All were new patients, many with severe chronic illnesses, and Richard will return to follow these cases. Next we went to Emperor's home village. We saw about 15 patients there.

We then travelled on to Mafi Seva village.  In Mafi Seva we work in partnership with the charity AMURT Ghana who, working together with local people, have constructed a reservoir and filtration system providing clean water to 25 villages. Other AMURT programmes include  a primary health care centre, midwifery clinic, community health education programmes, sexual health counseling, and a pathology lab.

In Mafi Seva the vision is to make available the best of all medical systems, conventional and homeopathic, to the people of the area. Together with AMURT Ghana we have developed guidelines for responsible treatment. Clients with severe infections and sepsis are given antibiotics, TB and HIV/AIDS patients will be given the conventional treatment protocols etc. However there is massive scope for homeopathy in treating people the many chronic and acute diseases that present including those which have not responded to previous treatments. Indeed with so much focus on health at the clinic patients suffering with conditions requiring surgery, such as cataracts, for example, can also be identified, as well as those with common underlying conditions such as diabetes, anaemia and high blood pressure.

As usual, patients came for treatment from all around. The steady flow of patients began about 7 am and continued on into the night. Because word had spread about the Indians' visit we were especially busy. One baby came with bronchopneumonia and had been prescribed a very strong antibiotic, Metronizadol, Paramol and a cough suppressant. These had been taken for a week with no effect and the baby was getting worse with a high fever and constant coughing. The Indian's gave Aconite 1M every 30 min. The baby fell asleep after the first dose and the next day was a bit better, waking 2-3 am with the cough so Kali Carb LM1 was given. The next day he was even better with more loose mucous in chest so Ant Tart LM1, next day after further improvement Hep Sulph was prescribed as the anti-psoric to finish the case!
One other interesting case that the Indian doctors took was a young man with bloody stools, with looked like ulcerative colitis, as apposed to dysentery as it had become quite chronic, and the main symptom was bloody stools after drinking and eating. Trombidium apparently helped this client very quickly as the symptoms cleared up right away and have not returned as yet.

It was satisfying to see the progress Emperor has made in his knowledge and confidence as a result of his experience with the two visiting Indian homeopaths.
Richard then accompanied the Indian doctor's to Kumasi for a 4 day course attended by 16 people
As the end of the trip approached we all felt that much had been achieved towards the vision of the Ghana Homeopathy Project: to work together with local people, supporting the development of professional homeopathy in Ghana so that it will be available on an ongoing basis to as many as possible, including the poorest communities.

We would like to extend our thanks to all who gave so generously to make this trip possible.
To find out more about the Ghana Homeopathy Project and our partners see
www.ghanahomeopathy.org
www.amurt.net/programs/africa/ghana
www.homeopathswithoutborders-na.org