From Tema to Geneva: A Clinic, A Cause, A Global Movement
Last week, I stood before the United Nations in Geneva.
I went as a physician. I went as a founder. And I went as a son.
The Doris Baird Memorial Dialysis Clinic in Tema, Ghana is named for my mother. She was a woman of quiet strength, deep compassion, and unwavering service. She believed that care should never be conditional. That belief is the foundation of everything we have built.
At the 5th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, I presented the case that our clinic represents: that communities of African descent carry a disproportionate burden of kidney disease, that dialysis is not elective care but a survival requirement three times per week without interruption, and that a fully constructed, professionally equipped facility is standing in Tema, Ghana ready to serve the community it was built for.
We brought a policy recommendation to the Forum. We called on Member States to establish a multilateral framework for replicable, community-anchored kidney care infrastructure across nations of the African diaspora. The Doris Baird Memorial Dialysis Clinic is the first model. It is where we begin. And it is the template from which ten more can be built.
I am deeply grateful to my colleagues on the panel. Nadine Spencer of BrandEQ has been the communications and advocacy force behind this work from the beginning. Dr. Emmanuel Marfo of the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary brought the research on Black health in Canada that gave our presentation its evidentiary weight. And to Mr. Charles Osei, Dr. Barbara Stewart, and Miss Mercy Roberts, the founding partners who have walked every step of this journey, thank you.
To Sunnybrook Hospital in Ontario, whose generous donation of fourteen dialysis machines made our facility possible, we are honoured by your partnership.
The clinic is built. The case has been made at the United Nations. We are now in the work of activation, and we are ready.
If this matters to you, share it. Visit us. Stand with us.
