Also, healthcare donor funding directly fuels corruption. There are many anecdotal reports of funded projects being completed by bureaucrats with data riddle with forged documents and ghost name payments with the bulk of the funds sleazed by those at the top.

Decoupling Healthcare Financing From Excessive Donor Dependence. Image credit - AAA Business

Dambisa Moyo in Dead Aid opines, “Africa is addicted to aid. For the past sixty years, it has been fed aid. Like any addict it needs and depends on its regular fix, finding it hard, if not impossible, to contemplate existence in an aid-less world. In Africa, the West has found its perfect client to deal with.”

Whilst at it, he solicited the help of other drivers, all of whom drove past. Amongst them was one in a shirt marked with the inscription, “Greater Works,” he drove past too, and so did a police vehicle.

Mental Health in Ghana; The Parable of The Good Samaritan. Image credit - Samaritas

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.  A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.  So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.  But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.”

For me, two interconnected paradigms stand out; the lack of political will and threats by the citizenry of electoral consequences should the status quo be disturbed.

Hawkers and traders ply their business in and around traffic on a daily basis.

 “We’re kidding ourselves if we think we can opt out of these decisions. Every policy the government adopts, and every individual choice you make, implies that a valuation has been made, even if no one has been honest enough to own up to it or even admit it to themselves.”  Tim Harford in “The Undercover Economist.”

The laissez-faire attitude with which herbal medicines are advertised on electronic media with claims of one product treating multiple diseases states some chronic and others infectious is known to us all.

Traditional medicine under the microscope. Image credit: Africa Research Institute

“My love affair with nature is so deep that I am not satisfied with being a mere onlooker, or nature tourist. I crave a more real and meaningful relationship. The spicy teas and tasty delicacies I prepare from wild ingredients are the bread and wine in which I have communion and fellowship with nature, and with the Author of that nature.” Euell Gibbons