Bringing Maternal Health to Ghana
At Samuel Merritt University, Carmen Ward-Sullivan, PhD, is associate dean of the College of Nursing. In the Kingdom of New Sawereso Seinuah, Ghana, she is Her Royal Highness Nana Amma Manu I, Queen Mother of Support. Ward-Sullivan was bestowed this honor by King Katakyie Agyemang Duah III for her extraordinary philanthropic efforts to build the first-ever maternity clinic in his kingdom.
In early 2023, Ward-Sullivan was introduced via Facebook Messenger to the 32-year-old king, whose community was losing too many women from lack of access to maternal healthcare facilities. With the vision of creating a maternity clinic, she initiated a robust round of fundraising through Zoom informational meetings and Eventbrite invitations and received more donations after a Giving Tuesday post on Facebook in November of that year. “People really want to help and make a difference in someone’s life,” she says.
During a visit to the region in July 2023 to attend the king’s wedding, Ward-Sullivan toured the site of the new clinic. “That was so amazing to go and just put my hands on the walls of this clinic, which wasn’t finished at the time. The bricks are made by hand. They use a lot of the resources from the Earth, and that was empowering to me.” She met many women there who sang and taught her traditional dances, as their way of saying thank you for all that she is doing for the kingdom. When completed, the new clinic will have 16 rooms with a staff of seven nurse midwives and one physician, along with three motorbikes so they can travel more easily. Ward-Sullivan is excited to attend the clinic’s opening, planned for October. “Our goal is to provide prenatal care, delivery, and post-delivery care to pregnant women and women who have already delivered their babies,” she says. “The clinic will be available to all 11 communities in the kingdom, as well as the neighboring kingdoms, to help mitigate the high numbers of maternal-infant mortality rates.”
Once the clinic is up and running, Ward-Sullivan’s next goal is a global exchange program between SMU and local nursing schools in Ghana. Based on her experience, she encourages SMU students to explore global health work, even when it might not be an obvious choice for them. “Take a chance. Go out and do some global health work. I’m an ICU and open heart surgery nurse, but I’m finding such joy and excitement in community nursing."
