Leading the heart: How Ghana’s centre reshaped heart care in West Africa

Ghana took a major step forward in 1989 when a specialist unit opened at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra. Instead of flying patients abroad for heart surgery, local doctors now had a place to perform modern procedures right at home. Over time, this centre attracted trainee surgeons from across West Africa, growing into one of the region’s top training grounds for heart and chest surgery. Today, surgeons still look to it as a model for how African hospitals can handle complex cardiac work.So far, teams there have carried out nearly fifteen thousand heart and lung operations for Ghanaians and patients from nearby countries. Each procedure keeps someone alive who might otherwise have no other option. The centre has also graduated thirty local heart surgeons who now work in Ghana, Nigeria and Ethiopia—with the very first surgeon from Gambia starting practice there last year. These numbers show that Africa can build its own expertise rather than depend on outside help. Yet the centre still faces big hurdles. Rooms sometimes lack enough power during surgeries, machines break down more often than hospitals would like, and specialist staff are spread too thin. Without steady funding or the latest tools, even the best-trained surgeons hit limits. Fixing these gaps would let more patients get timely care without last-minute transfers to foreign hospitals.