The state of Ghanaian liver medicine

Abstract

This paper aims to highlight the challenges in managing liver diseases in Ghana and the efforts needed to improve services to help curb the high rate of liver mortality in the young adults. Ghana is a rising, middle-income West African country with well-established administrative systems for healthcare, albeit with hospitals lacking modern equipment and being devoid of infrastructure for sophisticated interventional procedures. Although liver disease is common, due to the high prevalence of chronic viral hepatitis B and C infection, antiviral drugs are commonly unavailable, even in the rare instances where they can be afforded. Hospital wards and outpatient clinics are usually over-crowded with long waiting times and limited doctor-patient time interaction. Treatment for end-stage liver disease can be a challenge, with limited endoscopic services, which are centered in the big cities and with expertise which is not widespread. The training program in endoscopic therapies by the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota, USA), with faculty coming to Ghana to disseminate practical skills during a “training of trainers” program has gone a long way spreading the knowledge of managing life-threatening complications, such as variceal hemorrhage, albeit on a small scale in national terms. Collaboration between institutions from well-resourced and poorly-resourced countries exemplifies how such partnerships can go a long way in helping to support local training needs and the development of transferrable skills. Such partnerships may effectively provide healthcare workers with adequate training, with hepatology treatment protocols that are adapted to the local environment and thus allowing contextualisation of generic guidelines from the developed world and making them applicable to local settings.