Israeli neonatologists provide the know-how for a cooperative effort to lower the mortality rate of newborns in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city.

It’s Ghana’s second largest city – but Kumasi, with its population of 1.5 million people, has only one hospital. Overcrowded and undersupplied, it was no surprise that the infant mortality rate was running over 10 times higher than in Western cities like Beersheva in Israel. Of the 28,000 babies born in the city every year, some 4,800 died.

Now a team of Israeli neonatologists is changing all that. The specialists, brought in by the Alliance for Global Good in cooperation with the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ MASHAV Agency for International Development, have established two new neonatal units for the local population.

Overcrowded and poor, the city of Kumasi in Ghana saw high infant mortality rates, until a team of Israeli doctors stepped in.

The Israeli medical team also trained local doctors and nurses in advanced, but low cost methods to help save the babies’ lives.

“We believe it is our obligation as human beings and as a nation to share whatever we have with others,” says MASHAV Director Haim Divon.

“Israel holds a special place in our hearts,” says Abenaa Akuamoa-Boateng, representative of Millennium Cities Initiative of Ghana and West Africa.