Do same unto others

I am in the midst of trying to understand why a retired nurse with a medical history of hypertension and a random blood sugar of 13mmol/L cannot accept that she is at risk of type2 diabetes mellitus.

She prefers to denounce it with faith and accuse me of being a doomster rather than thanking me for the reminder. She felt I was wishing her death when she complained of persistent pain in the calf and I asked her to be wary of deep vein thrombosis. I am just asking her to be cautious and take measures to avoid these eventual diagnoses and she thinks I am evil.

She is not the first. A health resource person- another retired public health professional-who is always on radio educating people on health and even recently on Coronavirus, was once admitted at the emergency unit of a hospital I once worked. She was detained on account of breathlessness, and after medical examination and a chest X-ray done and discussed, it was recommended that she provide sputum to enable us rule out the possibility of pulmonary tuberculosis and that was it. Hell broke loose! She asked to be discharged and nearly beat me up just because I was the medic that prescribed her preliminary treatment, recommended the diagnostic imaging and delivered the news to her.

I don’t know about the lawyers, the judges, and the tax collectors. I don’t know if they would enjoy their own kind of legal representation if they were the clients or the judges would smile about the judgments they deliver at the court if they were in the box. I do not know how many tax collectors are business owners, and whether they would love to pay the same kind of tax they demand from businesses or whether they would love to pay a million dollars in another country just to start a retail business.

Even Aristotle believed man is a “political animal” so pardon me to talk for the politician. An opposition politician is the only candidate that wishes for a free fair and transparent election. He knows he is weak and does not control the nation’s security forces so he can only wish and agitate for the one in control to be fair. Few people recall how Charlotte Osei unfairly handled some political parties ahead of the 2016 general elections, but our short memories only help us all to talk harshly about Jean Mensah.

When the then Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, now president of the republic, led the “kum preko” demonstration, what was he seeking to achieve? And now that he is president, has he delivered justice and ensured that there is no group that also feels the need to undertake “wu mi navo” demonstration in order for their voice to be heard?

For the past three years or so under the “human right lawyer’s” reigns, he is known to have closed down businesses of political opponents. This same or similar accusation was leveled against the PNDC/NDC in its early days. The then Ghana Airways and now the airport, is gone. I am very sure If there is any valuable asset left that has not been sold, plans are underway to privatize them. Apparently, only politicians in opposition seem to be concerned and behave like patriotic citizens.

A few years ago, a group of terrorists were brought into this country to be rehabbed and released. As part of that deal the US military was to have a home here too. Ghanaians made a lot of noise and feared the US military was building a base here. The then president Mahama, his ministers and MPs defended it with every resource available to them. As usual the opposition then was against it, they were the patriots. Today, the then opposition and their MPs (now in power) have seen the wisdom of a US military base in Ghana and have approved that the US should have their way. As if that is not enough, our “I believe in Ghana” government has gone ahead to dash out our prime airport to a Turkish company for $70million. And the question I ask is, “what changes on the way from opposition to government?”

The list of such double standards can go on and on but let me not lose focus on why I started this writeup. If our health care professionals were so genuine, well-educated and believe in the healthcare they are offering to patients on a daily basis, why would they want to deny when the signs and symptoms point to a diagnosis and all they have to do is to take the test and go home on the drug? These same professionals have been taught to raise the morale of patients by telling them whatever disease they have isn’t a death sentence as long as they are on the medication. They are supposed to know it all and discourage patients from seeking faith healing at the expense of the proven scientific or medical formula, so why resort to fear and denial?

A few days ago, I read a Facebook friend’s post where he quoted one Nana Kobina Nketsia V to have said “You are a stupid generation” referring to the young man’s generation. My initial reaction was to pucker with smiles then I commented, “even his generation was stupid, just like the ones before his”. I believe my reply was apt because the troubles of the blackman did not begin with our generation. In any case we are just following in their footsteps and applying what we learnt from them. The E?e /Erveh people have a proverb: ”Ka xoxoa nu ye wo gbina yeyea do.” Seek the meaning from anyone who is good at translation.

To say the least, there is a special hypocrisy that runs through our veins as Ghanaians, which we only seem to detect when we are at the receiving end. If this wasn’t the case, cabinet ministers of a nation (mainly akans) would not forget an entire E?e /Erveh region in a national budget. I wonder what would have happened if it was an E?e /Erveh leader that had omitted the regions of these same Akan leaders from a national budget. By now there would possibly be a parallel government emanating from some palace with either a picture of a man stepping on a lion’s head or the one wearing a leopard’s skin.

Just learn to do unto others what you want them to do unto you!