Data Entry: Please note that the research database will be replaced by UNIverse by the end of October 2023. Please enter your data into the system https://universe-intern.unibas.ch. Thanks
Mission Medicine in a Decolonising Health Care System: Agogo Hospital, Ghana, 1945-1980
Journal
Ghana Studies
Volume
15/16
Pages / Article-Number
287-329
Keywords
Medical history, Christian missions, Ghana, decolonisation, mission hospitals, rural health care, nursing
Abstract
Based on the case of Agogo Hospital, this article provides a historical analysis of biomedical practice in rural Ghana. Until the 1950s, this mission hospital acted to a great extent autonomously from the colonial health care system and focused on curative medicine and hospital-based care. By the end of the 1970s, Agogo Hospital had become integrated into the national health care system and worked more in consonance with current policies that aimed at community-centred, preventive, and basic health care. The article reveals some of the continuities, ruptures and leaps, contingencies and possibilities that accompanied and shaped this process of integration and alignment. It shows how medical practice in Agogo emerged out of the changing constellations of different interests, ideas, conceptions, and values.
