Up close with Dr. Mrs Abena Tannor – Mother Supremo 2018 contestant

Dr. Mrs Abena Tannor is a Family Physician specialist and a Rehabilitation Medicine practitioner at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH).

She is an Akuapem who had her basic education at the KNUST basic schools, then to the Wesley Girls’ High School and back to the School of Medical Sciences at KNUST. She has been a practicing physician for about 10 years at KATH.

 

Her passion to improve the quality of life of persons with disabilities and that inner drive to always try something new pushed her to go for a Masters’ degree in Rehabilitation in the UK. She returned to Ghana after graduating with distinction to specialize in Family Medicine and undertake a Fellowship program in Sports and Rehabilitation Medicine.

Dr Tannor is also a Mandela Washington Fellow, an active member of the International Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine and currently working with the World Health Organisation on integrating rehabilitation into health systems as well as policies on assistive devices for persons with disabilities.

Dr. Tannor is passionate about her work and loves her family even more. She is married to a wonderful husband, a physician who is also passionate about the prevention of kidney diseases. She admits being a working mum has been tough especially without a house help but having an extremely supportive husband and three lovely kids makes motherhood worthwhile.

According to her, she grew up knowing family should always come first and so she cherishes the time spent with her family praying and reading the word of God, playing games and having family movie nights. They worship at the Family Chapel International and also love to spend time together sightseeing.

She has accepted Christ as her personal savior and believes without God, she is nothing! Her philosophy in life is not to worry about anything because God is in control and that helps her to balance work and family life daily. She has been blessed with the gift of sewing and baking (her hobbies) which she hopes to turn into a business in the near future.

Her advice to mothers especially those with children with disabilities is never to lose hope even though being a mother of such a child is a tough job. There will be so many times such a mother would feel she has failed in her job but in the eyes, hearts and minds of her kids, she is a hero, a supermum!

Dr. Mrs Tannor also loves to educate married couples and the youth on sexual health via church, television and radio programmes. This other passion of hers emanated from the increasing rate of sexually transmitted infections and sexual dysfunction she has had to treat as a Family Physician.

She believes topics on sex have been shrouded in secrecy due to our culture and so many marriages suffer in silence, eventually leading to divorce. The youth also engage in premarital sex with very little counselling resulting in infections, early marriages without proper counselling and relationship abuse.

Dr. Mrs. Tannor set up and is currently running the first locally led Rehabilitation Medicine service in Ghana at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital. She works with a multidisciplinary team of occupational therapists, speech therapists, physiotherapists, prosthetists and disability professionals to provide care to patients. The team also develops quality locally-made affordable and accessible assistive devices for persons with disabilities. She believes persons with disabilities can benefit from physician-led multidisciplinary rehabilitation teams which improve function, independence and quality of life.

She has thus helped to establish physician training in the field and hoping to also institute rehabilitation nursing training in Ghana. Dr. Tannor also advocates for the implementation of Inclusive education in Ghana, training teachers on how to handle children with disabilities so they can benefit (function-wise) from learning with children without disabilities.

If crowned Mother Supremo, Dr. Mrs Tannor hopes to expand her activities at KATH and that of her NGO, the Step Out Foundation. These include- training district multidisciplinary rehabilitation teams to provide basic rehabilitation care using locally made devices and expand training of teachers in inclusive education.

These will be done in collaboration with the local and international organisations she works with.

 

 

 

By: Ghana/Ultimatefmonline.com/106.9FM/Ivan Heathcote-Fumador

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