Dr. Haas Distributes Medical Aide in Ghana

 On June 18, 2011, Dr. Elson Haas left for a 5-week journey to Ghana in West Africa to lend his medical talents to improverished communities. His son, Orion, is currently working there with Global Brigades, which he co-founded. Global Brigades' mission is "to empower volunteers to facilitate sustainable solutions in under resourced communities while fostering local cultures."

Below is an excerpt from Elson's travelogue: 

"A very common problem in this hard-working community of Aboano and apparently in most Ghanaian people is what they were reporting as “waist pain.” Upon deeper interview with my translator David, this is what we call low back pain in the US. Surprisingly, relatively young men and women as well as elders presented this problem to the triage staff and doctors. The men work primarily as farmers, masons and fisherman, while the women have many babies (almost five per woman as the national average), who they carry around tied into their backs for many years. Plus the women amazingly carry many things on their heads, some light but many with much weight and a variety of shapes. To date, I haven’t seen any woman, from the very young to the older ones, drop even a peanut from the large trays atop their heads. (I finally saw one peanut drop driving to the airport to fly home, and she was running to a Cho-cho, the mini-van buses that carry the people from place to place.)"

 

To read more of Elson's journey and adventures, please click here.