Obed Bangdome Ofori admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Public Health with first class honours

Obed Bangdome Ofori, a former Regional Surveillance Officer for the Ghana Health Service Western Regional Health Directorate has been admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Public Health (BPH) Degree with First Class Honours at the University of Ghana.  He obtained a Final Cumulative Grade Point Average of 3.91. 

Obed entered the University to pursue this 3-year Diploma-to-Degree programme in August 2019. He had earlier obtained a diploma in Disease Control and Prevention in 2011 from the College of Health and Well-being (formerly Kintampo Rural Health Training School).

At the graduation ceremony that took place on 23 March, 2023 at the University's Cedi Conference Hall, Obed revealed that he almost gave up his dreams of pursuing the degree to seek greener pastures abroad but was defrauded by the visa agent. 

In an exclusive interview he narrated as follows:

"Two weeks into academic work, I took the decision to drop out of school due to the perceived high cost of school fees. The BPH program is fee-paying one, so I paid around 7,500 Ghana Cedis each year. So for the 3 years, I foresaw investing over 21,000 Ghana Cedis

I  came to the final decision that, it was better to use the 21,000 to acquire visa and travel to Europe. So I went to see a travel and tour agent who promised to get me a 2-year internship placement in Australia at a cost of more than 35,000 Ghana cedis. I agreed and made a down payment with part of my first year school fees.

You know the funny thing, this guy was not genuine. And the man who took me to him did not know his colleague agent was fake. Per the contractual agreement, he was supposed to get me the visa within 3 months from 22nd August 2019. What it meant was that from 23rd September, 2019 if the visa wasn't issued, he was supposed to refund every payment I had made to him. What actually saved me was that I insisted that we signed a contract at the initial stage. December 2019 passed and I was still in Ghana

When I realized the excuses were too much, I wrote an email to the company in Australia that the agent claimed was processing my documentations. To my surprise, the company replied that they didn't have any affiliation with him and the documents he had shared with me were all fake

Based of these revelations, I proceeded to the police to make complaint to effect his arrest. After several months of back and forth at the police station and court, he refunded my money to me" 

Obed used the medium to advice people against traveling abroad to seek greener pastures but rather invest into their education since it is the key to success. 

"Can you believe that, after the first semester I developed interest in the program and realized it was better to stay home, complete the programme and continue to work here to contribute my quota to improve the nation's health system?" 

Obed currently works for the Ghana Health Service Disease Surveillance Department as the Focal Person for Respiratory Pathogen Infections. He uses his new skills and knowledge to coordinate transportation of respiratory samples from over 35 sentinel sites across Ghana and analyzes the national respiratory infection data which feeds into the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System. 

In the near future, he hopes to further his education to obtain masters degree in Public Health. 

Story by:

Madeintaadi