Elijah Apagsichab, a nurse at the Sandema Hospital in the Builsa North Municipality of the Upper East Region spends his leisure time to dress wounds of aged people in rural communities within the Municipality free of charge.
Mr Apagsichab, had over the years supported several aged people who developed pressure sores as most of them were bedridden and neglected by some of their family members.
Mr Apagsichab in an interview with the GNA in Sandema, said “I realised that most family members pay little attention to the aged in our various families, especially the aged in the rural communities.
“Some are sick and no one is there to take them to Hospital. Sometimes, even how to get them food to eat is a problem though some of them have the foodstuffs in their rooms,” he said.
He told the GNA that he first started to dress wounds of the aged when an old lady was admitted to the female ward of the Hospital with ulcers on her buttocks and back, “She was discharged and scheduled for daily dressing.
“This was an old lady who could not sit on her own without support, and so transporting her to the Hospital for daily dressing will be a problem. I offered to attend to the woman at home for free. I only asked the relatives to buy gauze, which I sterilised and used for the dressing.
“I attended to the woman for more than one year, the wounds were finally healed and now the family of the old lady regard me as a member of their family.”
Mr Apagsichab said after that experience, he decided to find out if there were people with such wounds in the various communities that needed help. “So I started moving from one community to the other. In fact, I found many people, and most of them were the aged.
“In some communities, I saw that these old people were left to lie in one position for several days without anyone turning them. In such cases, I usually meet family members and educate them on the need to care for the aged.”
According to him, some of the aged were left for days without having their bath. “I met a very old man in a community called Kaasa-Siniensi, the family members actually neglected him.
“His pressure sores were bad. Sometimes he struggled from his room to the veranda. His condition was so bad that I had to ask the family members to move him to the Hospital.
“He was brought to the Hospital, and he later died. When this man died, the relatives preserved his body at the Navrongo morgue for a month, bought coffin, and spent on his funeral. Meanwhile when I used to visit them, they told me they didn’t have money to care for him.”
The nurse said “We are young, that is why people regard us. When you grow old, that is when you will realise that this world is not a better place. If we don’t care for the aged as young people, when we grow old, we will suffer as they are suffering.
“If I had the resources, I will build a place, resign my job as a nurse, and concentrate on caring for the aged, so that anybody who has an aged person he cannot care for can bring to me. I will take care of them,” he said.
When the GNA visited some of the aged people in the communities he had attended too, and their wounds were healed, they thanked Mr Apagsichab for the care he offered to them and prayed for God’s blessings and long life for him.
“I have nothing to offer him, but the Almighty God will bless him. He shall not luck, his work will progress and he shall live long to support humanity,” Madam Abiba Mahamadu, an 80 year old bedridden woman at Balansa said.
At Bilinsa, Madam Hamdala Issah Abaowan, daughter of an 83 year old woman who also benefitted from Mr Apagsichab’s gesture said “I actually underrated him after I roamed with my mother in big hospitals in Accra until a friend recommended him to him.
“When I brought my mum home from Accra, he attended to her free of charge and as you can see, she is fine and the wounds are healed. He used just sterile gauze and within some few months my mum was fine,” Madam Abaowan said.
GNA
