Profile Always hopeful
Naa Ashiley Vanderpuye trained in Holland but returned to work in her home country of Ghana.Mareeni Raymond finds out how she juggles life as the only full time doctor at a busy HIV/AIDS clinic in Accra as well as looking after her young baby
I have been trying to catch Naa Ashiley Vanderpuye in a quiet moment, but it's proving difficult. She is a one woman medical provider at the West Africa AIDS Foundation in Accra, Ghana, seeing almost all the patients at the clinic herself. She spends each morning on a ward round seeing the terminally ill AIDS patients in the hospice and then runs a walk-in clinic on the same site. In between seeing clinic patients she checks on the patients in the hospice, and if a nurse isn't around she sometimes changes the bed sheets herself. When I finally get a chance to talk to her I can snatch only a brief chat before she has to do something else at the clinic or pop home to spend time with her 10 month old baby.
Dr Vanderpuye studied medicine in Holland but was born in Ghana and spent most of her childhood in a very basic village in the northern regions. She always knew that she wanted to go back there. "I never knew exactly what I wanted to do, but I always felt drawn back to Ghana, as it is my home." She decided to study medicine because of the memory of her father's untimely death. "He died in a hospital in Ghana from a perforated appendix. I remember thinking, 'That's ridiculous. How could someone die from something so preventable?' I felt that if I came back here maybe I could prevent things like that happening, and make a difference."
After studying tropical medicine in Holland, she decided to move back to Ghana, where she had a job lined up as a hospital doctor. "Then completely by chance I met Eddie Donton, who turned all my plans upside down." Mr Donton is a Ghanaian by birth who, after a time working in California, set up the West Africa AIDS Foundation (WAAF) clinic in Accra in 1999. When Dr Vanderpuye learnt of his work she decided that WAAF was where she wanted to be. "Now my job is basically treating people with the HIV infection. That means people with opportunistic infections, nutritional problems, skin problems, and other complications. For the hospice patients we provide pain management and try to give them a dignified end."
"Working as a medical doctor at WAAF is quite challenging but extremely interesting. The majority of our clientele are HIV positive and belong to the less privileged groups in society. Simple things like transportation fees to enable them to come to the clinic, money for food and so on are problems. But despite all the constraints we are able to help these people, who would otherwise be marginalised." The clinic is helping hundreds of patients with HIV/AIDS, but sometimes the lack of resources proves hard to bear. "The worst thing is that we sometimes lose patients that maybe in other circumstances we could have saved. It can be very difficult after seeing what treatment people get in the Western world."
Dr Vanderpuye advises students interested in working in the developing world to be prepared. "People should be warned not to expect too much. You need to keep bearing in mind that the little you do will save lives. I also recommend that students interested should interact with people with the disease as much as possible to learn about the realities of HIV/AIDS, and to leave their misconceptions behind." But she stresses that developing countries need all the help they can get and that patients are extremely appreciative. "Anyone interested in working here must come as soon as they can."
VALLAS/REX
Naa Ashiley Vanderpuye (sitting on the far left) and her colleagues
At the clinic many patients are afraid to admit they have the disease. "It's the silence that kills many people here. Personally, I think the next thing on the agenda is to make people understand the disease." Dr Vanderpuye is also involved in the many other services WAAF provides, the two most important being voluntary counselling and testing programmes and education programmes. Voluntary counselling and testing means people can come to the clinic, whether they are HIV positive or not, to talk about their social and psychological problems and have an HIV test and free counselling regardless of the results. "We don't just talk to people about their status. You'd be surprised at the problems that we see: everything from family disputes and alcoholism to hypochondriasis and spiritual problems."
One of the most successful projects at WAAF is the "passion squad" peer education project, which targets the high risk age group of 15 to 18 year olds and university students. Dr Vanderpuye explains the system: "WAAF staff go out to schools and the university, teach groups of students about HIV/AIDS and related issues, and then these students become peer educators--a source of information for their colleagues." The passion squads, as they are fondly referred too, also do outreach work in the remote areas of Accra, teaching people on the streets about the disease. "In Ghana young people don't talk to their family about sex--they get information from colleagues, and much of this is inaccurate. Also, teachers don't want to raise controversial issues."
As a young mother and the only full time doctor at the clinic Dr Vanderpuye's life can be hard work. But while many doctors are put off by the modest financial rewards of working with such an underprivileged group, she has other reasons for going to work in the mornings. "In the future I know it's going to be very difficult, but I see a lot of good things will come from the hard work we are doing. Sometimes it seems like a little but in the end it will make a big difference. The appreciation and blessings given to us by our patients is enough motivation for us to carry on with our work. We can't lose hope."
Mareeni Raymond fourth year medical student, University College London
Email: mareeni_r@yahoo.com
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