My trip to Takoradi Ghana
Sophie Castleman (Nursing)

When I found out that we had the opportunity to do an overseas elective in our second year of training I immediately knew I wanted to go to Africa. Having heard of Work the World through a nursing student in the year above, my friends and I looked at the website and knew it was for us straight away. We chose Ghana for our 4 week placement, as it seemed to offer such a varied experience and we’d heard so much about the warmth and friendliness of the Ghanaian people, which really attracted us to it.

We had no hesitations and booked it online through Work the World as soon as we’d checked it through. The staff at Work the World both online and over the phone, gave us constant support when we were booking and smoothed out any queries we had. This made us SO excited and it was such an easy process as we had so much help and advice. Before we knew it we were on the plane, rucksacks packed, immunisations complete and all our farewells over. Being a real home person, I was really, really nervous and found it so hard to say goodbye to family and boyfriend etc…even though it was only a month! But as soon as we arrived at Accra airport we were greeted by Prince from Work the World who was great. We had to stay overnight in Accra before travelling to Takoradi in the morning. Nightmare hit as our bags were lost at the airport…but even that didn’t phase us as Prince took such good care of us and Work the World were so helpful.

Once we eventually arrived in Takoradi and were reunited with our long lost bags, we were taken to the house, which would be our home for the next month or so. I realise now how silly it was to be nervous because we were shown around all the local places to get internet, phone cards and how to get the different types of taxis and infamous “tro tro’s”. We met Godwin our house leader who cooked for us every day except the weekends. We became such good friends with him and he totally made my trip. We were spoilt with food, having a delicious selection of Ghanaian foods with a twist to suit our tastes. It was great meeting other students in the house who were also doing their nursing and medical electives. For our first day of placement we were shown our departments and clinics. I was I a clinic for the first week, and the main regional hospital for the next 3 weeks. I spent time in A&E, paediatrics and labour ward. We were able to do so much and Doctors were more than happy to let us insert cannulae, catheters and everything! It is such a different style of nursing care and health care in general, which takes some getting used to at first but you get so absorbed in the culture that you become used to it so quickly.

One thing I found particularly difficult is the delivery of nursing care. I found the nurses very abrupt and if ever I held a patient’s hand to comfort them or used non-verbal communication skills, the nurses laughed at us and thought it was unnecessary. So I would definitely advise to stick to your way of caring and your way of nursing. All of our placement was organised by Work the World which made us feel so assured that we were going to get great experience, and we absolutely did. I am so happy I did my elective through Work the World. The constant, unfailing support, organisation and friendliness made my trip what is was, and living in the Takoradi house was so much fun, with some awesome people.

I would most certainly recommend Ghana as it has so much to offer. We travelled every weekend and saw so much of the beautiful Ghanaian experiences, even though I was only there for a month. Someone once said to me that once you experience Africa, you will have it in your heart forever. Now I know just what they were talking about. My time in Ghana taught me so much, and enabled me to grow so much as a nurse, and as a person. I have memories that will be precious to me forever, and I will never forget the situations I experienced as a nurse.