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Emmanuella-Faith Amoako Shares Story of Family Facing Dual Tragedy at Cape Coast Hospital

Emmanuella-Faith Amoako/LinkedIn

Apr 11, 2025, 08:26

Emmanuella-Faith Amoako Shares Story of Family Facing Dual Tragedy at Cape Coast Hospital

Emmanuella-Faith Amoako, Paediatric Oncology Fellow at Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, shared a post on LinkedIn:

” ‘Doctor, doctor, my wife is dead!’

Eben ran into the reception of the paediatric ward that morning, his voice cracking through the air. He didn’t care that the floor was being cleaned. He didn’t care that they had just mopped with chlorine. He didn’t care that we were still in the thick of a Covid pandemic. He broke the news lying on that cold, wet floor.

His wife, who was carrying his baby, had just died with her unborn baby. Just like that.

Didn’t we all speak to her just yesterday? I had joined Eben on a video call to check in on her and promised her that I’d make sure she saw her son, Shishi before her due date.

A few weeks earlier, Shishi had come to our unit. The cutest little boy I ever did see. He had a recurrent fever and needed blood. After taking his history, I already knew. Eben looked me in the eyes, searching, hoping for good news. But I didn’t have what he needed to hear. I had to tell him that his precious Shishi had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. A cancer of the blood. One that cranks out new cells from the marrow into the bloodstream—many cells, but not the kind that fight infection. A cancer with excellent prognosis if Shishi lived in America or Europe, but dismal here, right in the heart of Ghana, near the beautiful beach of Cape Coast.

I explained the diagnosis, the plan, the odds. Eben held his baby tight and wept. A sight so rare, yet so heartbreaking because in our culture, men shouldn’t cry. But cry he did. Then he wiped his tears and made one request:

His wife, eight months pregnant, must not know. He didn’t want her to worry. She needed to carry the baby to term, peacefully. I must not tell her Shishi had cancer. I should simply say he was being treated in the hospital and would come home when he was better.

I agreed. It made sense. A man who loved his family that deeply you want to help him protect them.

So we began treatment. Chemo after chemo. The days rolled by. Counts dropped. Transfusions came. I remember when Shishi needed platelets. The hospital had none. The we could get was in Accra. My dear brother Ike went to the National Blood Bank, picked up the blood product, and sent it by courier to Cape Coast.

It arrived safely, but my hospital had no agitator to keep the platelets moving until they were used. So, I tied the bags to a fan and let them swing gently until we were ready. We improvised, always. Because Shishi needed to live to meet his baby brother.

Every night, when the ward had quieted, we’d call Shishi’s mom. She missed him terribly. She wanted him home. We told her he was doing fine. That he was getting strong. And he was because we were fighting with everything we had.

We spoke to her the night before she died. She looked well. We laughed and chatted like family. She said she couldn’t wait to hold her son again. I told her we’d do everything in our power to bring him home.

So when Eben came running in the next morning, screaming, ‘Doctor! Doctor! My wife is dead!’—I froze.

And I wept.”