Story By Florian quanz

German Rotary Volunteer Doctors, a multidistrict association, has been working for 25 years to improve health care in Ghana, India, and Nepal. Editor Florian Quanz of the regional Rotary magazine serving Germany and Austria accompanied a group of volunteers on a trip to Techiman, Ghana, to see the work up close.

The bus stops abruptly. There is not a village to be seen for miles. Otto Dollinger looks at the driver. His wife, Barbara, takes a quick look at her watch. The two German doctors and a team of local health care workers have already been on the road for 2½ hours trying to reach four villages in central Ghana far from big cities.

“A truck got stuck ahead and is blocking the road. We can’t get any further for the time being,” Felix Ofori explains. He is the manager of an eye clinic at Holy Family Hospital in the city of Techiman that has deployed the mobile health care team. Ofori knows exactly what to do.

He reaches for his cell phone. After a brief phone call, he smiles at Otto and Barbara Dollinger. A pickup truck, small enough to maneuver around the blockage, will drive part of the team to the first two villages, he explains. Ofori can’t be stopped. He has experienced situations like this before and is well prepared.

Otto Dollinger is not fazed either. “You always have to be prepared for something like this here,” he says.

It’s October, and the ophthalmologist, who is a member of the Rotary Club of Biberach, Germany, is traveling through Ghana on behalf of German Rotary Volunteer Doctors for two weeks with his wife, an orthoptist who works on problems with how the eyes move and work together.

They are volunteering at the hospital in Techiman. It is not their first outreach ​assignment for the doctors association. “We set off this morning at 6 o’clock ​together with nine team members from the eye clinic. Our goal is to visit four ​villages today.”

With such mobile teams, the hospital provides health care that would otherwise ​not be available in remote regions. In the villages on the list for today’s mission, ​people were alerted a few days beforehand that a team from the eye clinic would ​be on-site and that anyone with eye problems should visit.

“A single ophthalmologist is responsible for more than 1 million people here in ​the region around Techiman,” Dollinger says.

The Rotarian doctors group connects experts with people in need of services. In ​this case, doctors from German Rotary clubs with valuable knowledge and ​professional experience are helping address a chronic lack of medical care in ​Ghana, especially in rural areas.

“We split up into teams beforehand so that we can examine the people in all four ​villages at the same time,” Ofori says as the bus driver signals riders to get back ​on.

The truck has been pulled out with the help of an excavator, and the road is ​cleared. Ofori calls off the pickup. Half an hour later, the bus reaches a small ​settlement. The team has reached its first destination.

Otto Dollinger takes his rucksack, which contains everything he needs for the ​examinations, to a small building. While pregnant women are examined in the ​left wing, he will be checking patients’ eyes in the right wing.

A local nurse is already waiting for him there. She will record patient information, ​including examination results, in writing.

One of Dollinger’s first patients is an older man. Diagnosis: cataract in his left eye. ​Because the patient speaks only a little English, the nurse translates. “Can you ​come to the hospital today and stay there for two days?” The patient says yes, ​and Dollinger smiles.

Meanwhile, Barbara Dollinger is examining people in another village about 20 ​minutes away. With optometrist Joseph Bannor of Holy Family Hospital, she sets ​up an improvised doctor’s office in a church.

“This boy must be taken to a hospital for further examination,” she explains to ​Bannor after examining a young patient with poor vision in both eyes and ​recurring severe headaches. Bannor writes the boy’s name on a piece of paper.

Ultimately, the hospital staff members decide who will go right away to the ​hospital by bus.

“We can only make recommendations,” Otto Dollinger explains. Cooperation can ​only be successful if projects are initiated together because then sustainability is ​guaranteed.

The day after, at the hospital, Dollinger checks on the patients collected ​yesterday. Joachim Teichmann, an internist, gastroenterologist, and ​endocrinologist from the Rotary Club of Lüdenscheid, Germany, is getting ready ​for two endoscopic examinations. In the days before, he trained a hospital ​employee in gastroenterological examination techniques.

Teichmann’s two patients complain of stomach problems. While the hospital staff ​members in the endoscopy department are busy preparing everything, ​Teichmann is still having a preliminary discussion with a nurse in the office.

Suddenly the door opens. “We’re ready,” a voice is calling. Teichmann gets up ​immediately and goes into the examination room.

“If in doubt, my colleagues can consult me,” he explains. But that rarely happens.

The staff members are now far too experienced. About 500 to 600 examinations ​of this kind are carried out here every year.

The endoscopy room is built to German standards, Teichmann says. German ​Rotary Volunteer Doctors have played a major role in this.

Much of the equipment was financed and procured by the group.

“It is important to advance the clinic and its treatment options together with the ​staff,” Teichmann says.

Back at the eye clinic, Osei Agyeman of Holy Family Hospital looks down with ​concentration. Every incision has to be precise. What is a routine procedure for ​the head physician at the eye clinic would not even be on the surgery schedule at ​a German clinic. “In Germany, the patient would have seen a doctor much earlier. ​Unfortunately, the only option now is to remove the right eye as a whole,” ​Dollinger explains.

One operation follows another. The Rotary Club of Essen-Ruhr, Germany, ​covered the costs of building the eye clinic. The clubs from Lüdenscheid and ​Biberach together with the Rotary Club of Techiman, Ghana, financed the ​essential equipment through a Rotary Foundation global grant.

The man with the cataract also has his turn. His case is an example of what the ​hospital can achieve. On Wednesday, he was examined in his village and taken to ​the clinic in Techiman. On Thursday, he was operated on by Agyeman and his ​team. On Friday, the bandage over his eye will be removed. “This will be a very ​special moment for him,” Dollinger says. “He immediately will be able to see ​something in the operated eye again. A completely different life will begin for ​him.”

Members: 942

Total missions: Nearly 2,500 over 25 years

Average missions per year: 100

Where they work: Ghana, India, and Nepal

Hospitals supported: 23 (14 in Ghana, one in India, and eight in Nepal)

Foreign specialists trained in Germany: About 100

Largest single sum for a project: 625,000 euros for the emergency ward of Holy Family Hospital in Techiman, Ghana, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development

This article originally appeared in Rotary Magazin (Germany and Hungary)