Smiling faces, sleepy babies in loving arms: at first glance, the babies seen in the above photo may seem like the picture of health. Unfortunately, their journey to Ghana’s Village of Hope was far from easy. Each of them were found abandoned – those left at a nearby hospital were the lucky ones.
About 18 months ago, a baby mere hours old was discovered crying in a pit in Ghana’s Central Region. The man who found him quickly called Social Services, which then called Village of Hope. Emergency personnel from Village of Hope rushed to pick him up.
Doctors and nurses at Hope Christian Hospital, located on Village of Hope’s campus, watched him closely over the next month. They even named him Kofi, the Ghanaian word for “Friday-born male.” Was he born on a Friday? No one knows for sure. They only know that was the day his life was saved.
Kofi may not have survived had it not been for Hope Christian Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Opened in 2020, Hope Christian’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit is one of only six in all of Ghana, a country with a population of more than 34 million people.
But for every Kofi, there’s the story of a child’s preventable death, many of which are tied to a lack of available blood.
Just two weeks ago, twin babies were rushed to Hope Christian Hospital in desperate need of O-negative blood. With no O-negative blood in the hospital, Hope Christian’s medical director Emmanuel Yiadom immediately began testing those around him at the hospital. By the time an O-negative donor was found, one of the twins had died.
“We are doing the best that we can,” Yiadom said. “We still believe that if we have the means to do this work, the stories may change. The stories may change.”
Support Hope Christian Hospital
From now to June 14, World Blood Donor Day, we’re partnering with a hospital in Ghana on an endeavor we believe will save countless lives. Hope Christian Hospital serves more than 30 rural communities in Ghana’s Central Region around the clock but needs help fulfilling a longtime dream: its expansion into a regional blood bank.
To best support them in their efforts, we plan to raise $20,000 to purchase equipment vital to that mission. We’re so excited to help deliver these lifesaving items to Hope Christian Hospital and the people of Ghana’s Central Region, but we can’t do it without you.
Please join us this week by donating to this amazing, lifesaving project. Together, we can make a real difference.
In a conversation following the child’s death, Fred Asare, managing director for Village of Hope, told us that this is the tragic reality of life in Ghana.
“This is unfortunately not an isolated case. This is not an exception,” Asare said. “This happens quite often and is very disturbing. So when we say we need blood, it is about lives.”
