Local pediatrician honoured for work in Windsor, Ghana
“Over the years, it is amazing the number of children whose life he has saved,” said longtime friend and fellow Rotary Club member Janet Kelly. “So many people have a story. I will be in a meeting and his name will come up and someone will say, ‘oh my god, he saved my child’s life.’”
Bacheyie is recognized as the founder of Windsor’s first neonatal intensive care unit at the former Salvation Army Grace Hospital in 1982. He has since gone on to oversee the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Newborn Services at Windsor Regional Hospital as its medical director.
“He has made an amazing contribution to our community by starting the unit and building it over the years,” Kelly said. “He has impacted the lives of hundreds and hundreds.”
After such a long association, Bacheyie has been receiving awards for his contributions — most recently the
Rajbir Mann International Service Award from the Rotary Club of LaSalle.
In May, he received the Champion Award from the Multicultural Council of Windsor and Essex County during its annual Herb Gray gala.
Bacheyie, aside from his local work, is also being recognized for decades of efforts in Ghana where he was born and raised.
At least twice each year, Bacheyie returns home to provide medical services, train others and bring along volunteer groups — often affiliated with Rotary — who have made a large difference in the country’s challenged Upper West Region.
Under his direction groups have brought equipment and supplies to the area’s hospital, helped launch a neonatal facility to treat babies, dug more than a dozen boreholes to access clean water and also constructed school facilities that include a feeding program. He has also help start a co-op feeding program and greenhouses.
When Bacheyie left Ghana in 1976 to further his education and get specialty training in pediatrics in Toronto, his intention was always to return home afterwards “to train others or serve the country,” he said.
But former professors in his home country told him to remain in Canada with his young family due to considerable political unrest in the late 1970s, he said.
So he did — and soon after a provincial report calling for creation of neonatal care centre in Windsor brought him here to start the unit.
“I was recruited to initiate the process,” Bacheyie said. “When I made the decision to come to Windsor it was definite. I wasn’t going to go back or anywhere else. I made a commitment to set up the program and make sure it took root — not to set it up and leave.”
He expressed pride how local families since creation of a neonatal intensive care unit in Windsor no longer had to travel to London, Toronto or Detroit to receive emergency care for their little ones.
“I’m very happy the way we have developed everything,” he said. “Our performance and results are comparable to anywhere in Ontario or Canada. There might be a dozen babies each year out of 500 to 600 that might need (emergency) care in another community.”
But Ghana has never left his thoughts. His family included six children, so he still has many relatives back home.
“It’s always in my heart to go back visit family and to help however I can,” he said.
Bacheyie said it was an early trip home to Ghana in 1985 when he had a 12-year-old girl die from dehydration and diarrhea due to a lack of medical supplies or clean water as being a driving force behind his never-ending efforts.
“They did not have basic supplies or intravenous at the hospital to help rehydrate her,” he said. “That was the spark of my activity to get them supplies that were useful, that I could send or bring to them to help.”
With improved facilities in his home region in place, thanks in part to his efforts, Bacheyie has hopes to expand similar services to other regions in Ghana.
Described by others as very humble, Bacheyie said he was “very surprised and appreciative” of the recent honours in Windsor.
“I’ve always done things because I like to do them,” he said. “I do things that make me happy and give others pleasure — not wanting to be recognized. When other people do so, I appreciate it greatly.”