My early days in Atibie have contributed to my success today-UGMC CEO

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the University Of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC), Dr. Darius Osei, has attributed his success as a medical doctor to his early beginnings as a doctor in the town of Atibie in Kwahu.
In an interview with Rev.Erskine on the Y Leaderboard Series, he shared that the genuine interest shown by an American doctor at the Atibie Government Hospital after he sought healing from a bite of a baboon inspired him to work in the same hospital as a doctor some years after that incident.
“I said to myself that one day if I should become a doctor, I will come back here and work. I don’t know whether that influenced my vision and journey. So when I finished medical school, I walked to the Ministry of Health and said I wanted to work at Atibie and the man said, ‘are you crazy? Nobody wants to go there’. But that memory was still there so I went to Atibie and stayed there for 10 years”, he added.
Although he notes that his years at this small town was challenging, he did not regret making this move as he states, “I am sure everything that I owe today is the experience that I gathered in the community. That is where I learnt the empathy, sympathy and the need for the poor to also have access to care. It makes you a complete human being apart from your skills. You then learn about the way of life and that kind of touch is what I am sure has influenced what I am doing today”.
Speaking on one of such experiences in Atibie, he related: “Atibie used to have very high mortality in terms of maternal deaths and it was worrying but I did some research work and found out that the time most of these women who were dying was between 4am and 5am and one would not see someone die around 12pm or 1pm and this was because most of the doctors were living away from the hospital.
We pleaded and they gave us an ambulance. I built street lights from the hospital to the last doctor’s bungalow. With this, the maternal deaths dropped to almost nothing. This was so successful that the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) did some quality assurance work with us. Most people had to come to Atibie for a study tour. I got a scholarship to study. These are the things that influenced my decision of going into hospital management. There is no regret at all. I wanted to solve more than direct health problems. The problems were not to do with the competencies of nurses and doctors. It was pure administrative flaws”.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah