Kwaku Kwarteng’s story about how he found out he had kidney failure started off as something that should have been good news for him until things escalated – really quickly.
Having worked a full year after senior high school without visiting the hospital, it was good news for him and so there was no issue when his mother sent him money to go and renew his health insurance card.
A happy, healthy young man as he was on that day, he even made a stop at his uncle’s appliance shop to say a quick hello.
But that was it: from the moment he stepped out of the shop and onto the road, he realised a sudden change in his health and with a renewed health insurance card, he just thought it wise to go to the nearest health center to have himself checked.
That was how it all started and he told Etsey Atisu, host of #SayItLoud on GhanaWeb TV, that it was such a quick switch from good health to his current state, that he didn’t see it coming.
“I completed SHS in 2015. So, I did Applied Electricity, so, I decided I’d learn the fieldwork. So, I was working with a company in Kumasi called (sic) Electrical Contractors. So, I worked with them for one year in 2016.
“So, I picked my health insurance one early morning and I was saying throughout 2015, I didn’t go to the hospital and my mom called me that she had sent me money so I should go and renew the health insurance… so, I went to Bantama to do the renewal.
“Immediately I got down, my uncle sells TVs and other stuff downstairs so I decided that I’ll pass there… I greeted him and I left. Immediately I came out, I wasn’t feeling well although I wasn’t sick. It just seemed like I was some way. I decided that now that I had renewed my insurance, I’d pass by Kwadaso SDA and see.
“So, I went there and they checked my blood pressure and it was very high. So, the lady told me to go and sit for 30 minutes and come back. So, I went back after 30 and it was still high. We did it continuously but it was still high by 6PM. So, the doctor told me that they can’t allow me to go home with that high blood pressure,” he explained.
By the time he left the Kwadaso SDA Hospital, Kwaku Kwarteng said he had been diagnosed with the disease that he has, for the last 8 years, been living with.
Follow his full story in the video below, on GhanaWeb TV:
Ghana’s leading digital news platform, GhanaWeb, in conjunction with the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, is embarking on an aggressive campaign which is geared towards ensuring that parliament passes comprehensive legislation to guide organ harvesting, organ donation, and organ transplantation in the country.
