LOCAL PHARMACIST helps design a world of hope in Ghana

Forty-four years ago, Rubin Wiens was in Ghana, West Africa, as a newly-graduated pharmacist, volunteering with Canadian University Services Overseas. Since then, he’s practiced pharmacy in the Lower Mainland, in Southern Africa, in Northern British Columbia, and now at the Enderby Pharmacy. This year, the local semi-retired pharmacist had the chance to go back to Ghana, albeit this time with a team of engineers and architects.

“My son serves with Engineering Ministries International. I wanted to go along with him on his missions trip to get a better understanding of the work that he’s doing,” says Wiens, “I wanted to see Ghana again. At the same time, this trip did have a health dimension, and I’ve always been involved in health work.”

The combination of a hospital project to Ghana was hard to pass up, and by mid-October, Wiens was en route from Armstrong to Accra to join architect Randy Seitz from Virginia, structural engineer Jason McCool from Arkansas, electrical engineer Dan Schwanke from Fort St. John, BC, and son Kevin Wiens – the project leader – and two interns from the Calgary Engineering Ministries International office to spend a week in Ghana preparing the design of a hospital for La Mansaamo Kpee International (LMK).

The volunteers developed concepts for the expansion of LMK's existing clinic into a maternal & child specialty hospital to serve the health needs of children and mothers in low-income families.

“I assisted and observed while plans were being developed for medical services in a very poor urban location,” says Wiens. Wiens joined the design team in touring local building sites and hospitals, and had hands-on involvement on the site – he collected as-built measurements of the existing buildings on the clinic site, he acted as “rod man” for the survey, spent time interacting with Ghanaians on the site, and ran various errands for the design team.

“What really astonished me,” says Wiens, “was the ability of the team of professionals to do the work in the specified time. They didn’t know each other before this time; they weren’t knowledgeable about the project until just before the trip; they only had one week to complete a preliminary master plan. All of this had to be done in a foreign culture.”

Wiens also provided his own brand of expertise to the table by providing recommendations on the pharmacy design for the LMK hospital. He visited several local pharmacies in the Accra region to ensure his recommendations were culturally appropriate. “The involvement of a professional pharmacist is much less in a Ghanaian pharmacy, much more behind the scenes” says Wiens, “also, the over-the-counter sales of medicines and treatments is more pronounced and the dispensing and prescription business is less evident than it is in North America.” This was reflected in the design requested by La Mansaamo Kpee. LMK wanted a pharmacy that would serve three functions. One, of course, was providing medicine for the hospital, but the pharmacy also needed to be designed to dispense prescriptions to the public as well as to provide over-the-counter sales to the public – functions that aren’t standard in North American hospitals.

The highlight of the trip for Wiens was taking the team back to the hospital he had worked at forty-four years previous. “We spent under an hour there – but just walking around there brought back good memories.” Current staff recognized one of Wiens’ former co-workers – a Ghanaian who was involved in diagnostic services – from the pictures he shared, and they were able to connect up by phone. Wiens remembers Adidome as a well-operating hospital, with good staff, both western and local.

Though somewhat disappointed that the facilities haven’t changed more in the ensuing years – the buildings are much the same as in 1967 – Wiens did notice that the expatriot community has shrunk and local leadership has filled the gaps, not just at the hospital, but throughout Ghana in medical services, local business involvement, and organizations, societies and other decision making groups.

Back in Armstrong, Wiens reflects on why he goes overseas: “It’s a response to a personal faith, and trying to put that faith into practice. Part of it is meeting people’s needs in other countries. Part of it is adventure – getting more out of life – establishing more of a purpose.”