{"id":501,"date":"2013-07-03T00:41:37","date_gmt":"2013-07-03T00:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/?p=501"},"modified":"2019-06-20T14:15:23","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T18:15:23","slug":"the-mad-doctor-of-tamale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/2013\/07\/the-mad-doctor-of-tamale\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mad Doctor of Tamale"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dr.<\/a>
Dr. Abdulai laughs with a patient at his clinic<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"George<\/a>
George Amimnu, a paraplegic patient at the clinic, watches the Ghana v. France soccer match, better known as football in Ghana<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TAMALE, Ghana – They call him the \u201cMad Doctor of Tamale.\u201d He sees 30 new patients a day, and doesn\u2019t receive a salary. He houses lepers, HIV\/AIDS patients, the mentally and physically disabled and the destitute \u2013 all of whom would be otherwise left to die.<\/p>\n

He is Dr. David Abdulai, the founder of the Shekhina Clinic, located in Tamale, in Ghana\u2019s northern region, where poverty strikes every corner of the city. Dr. Abdulai grew up poor and alone in Tamale, losing his father to leprosy, and his mother and 10 siblings to poverty-related illnesses.<\/p>\n

After attending University of Ghana Medical School, Dr. Abdulai began work at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and 37 Military Hospital, both located in Ghana\u2019s capital, Accra, in the south of the country. But still, he was not satisfied. Eventually, Dr. Abdulai left his job to serve those most in need, opening the Shekhina Clinic in 1989.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew what it meant to suffer,\u201d Dr. Abdulai said, remembering his own struggle to survive.
\nThis suffering has shaped Dr. Abdulai\u2019s work mentality. \u201cI\u2019m an outlaw in the medical field,\u201d he said. Smiling and laughing, Dr. Abdulai explains that he is ashamed to be called a doctor. \u201cDoctors aren\u2019t interested in this type of help because there is no money in it. When the money motive is at stake, everything else isn\u2019t,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

All of Dr. Abdulai\u2019s services are funded by donations, including those from the U.S. Department of State and former Ghanaian President Jerry John Rawlings.<\/p>\n

This funding is attributed to God. \u201cWe believe that God will fight for us when the need arises. We don\u2019t go asking for support from people, but people come and see, and they feel they want to be a part of it,\u201d Dr. Abdulai said.<\/p>\n

George Amimnu, a paraplegic patient living in the clinic, was sent to Dr. Abdulai after hospitals could not cure him. Today, Amimnu lives in his personal quarters with minimal pain. Lying on his specially designed waterbed, Amimnu expresses his gratitude for Dr. Abdulai. \u201cHe treats me like his son,\u201d said Amimnu.<\/p>\n

Aside from treating patients, and housing many in his hospice center, Dr. Abdulai also has a \u201cMeals-on-Wheels\u201d program. \u201cI never had enough to eat,\u201d he said. Today, Dr. Abdulai provides lunch daily to 150 destitute and mentally ill people within a 65-kilometer distance of the clinic.<\/p>\n

More so than providing medical attention, Dr. Abdulai uses a holistic approach to the healing process. \u201cHe believes that love for his patients is a cure,\u201d said Tamale native James Suran-Era.<\/p>\n

Dr. Abdulai sums his medical philosophy up by saying, \u201cWhen you give up, dying can be easy. But when you become accepted, and feel accepted, dying is difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  TAMALE, Ghana – They call him the \u201cMad Doctor of Tamale.\u201d He sees 30 new patients a day, and doesn\u2019t receive a salary. He houses lepers, HIV\/AIDS patients, the mentally and physically disabled and the destitute \u2013 all of whom would be otherwise left to die. He is Dr. David Abdulai, the founder of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[45,82,43,85,84,47,83,71],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":968,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions\/968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyujournalismprojects.org\/africadispatch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}