Village Healthcare Experience in Ghana
Our Ghanaian village experience offers a unique chance to gain insight into rural village life in West Africa. You'll see how basic healthcare is delivered with the most limited of resources. You can spend one or two weeks in your village, and we can easily fit this around your main placement.
For your time in the village you will be the guest of a local host family. You'll live in their home and eat simple traditional food cooked over a wood fire in front of the house. We think that living within the community like this is an unforgettable experience. It also really helps in understanding attitudes towards healthcare in a village setting.
Ghanaian village clinics have extremely limited resources, and are often being staffed only by a part-time community health worker or visiting doctor. The majority of their work is in malaria treatment, maternity care and child vaccination programmes. This means your time in the village won’t be a full-time clinical work placement, but it complements your hospital or clinical placements by teaching you about the realities of rural healthcare delivery.
Tradition and village politics are taken very seriously in Ghana. On arrival you will be introduced to the village Chief (to whom it is customary to present a bottle of local schnapps). Almost any occasion (from the Chief’s birthday to the arrival or departure of a visiting medical student) is cause for lively celebration and you’re pretty sure to be taught local drumming and dancing whether you like it not!
Always a friendly welcome
You can do the village experience either before or after a hospital-based placement. If you have limited time it can be made into a one- or two-week placement in its own right.
Photo Gallery
Collecting water from the village well
Pounding fufu, a traditional Ghanaian food made from yams