Remembering Korle Bu Hospital: Biomedical Heritage and Colonial Nostalgia in theGolden Jubilee Souvenir

Abstract

On the evening of 8 October 1973, a group of physicians led a watchnight ceremony on the campus of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Ghana. At midnight, Dr. Portuphy-Lamptey, the Chief Medical Administrator, pulled a lanyard to raise an official flag inaugurating the Hospital's Golden Jubilee Anniversary. The next day, the Ghanaian Commissioner for Health, Lieutenant Colonel A.H. Selormey, unveiled an anniversary plaque that thanked and praised the hospital staff who had worked at Korle Bu over the past fifty years. In a speech to assembled dignitaries, Selormey appealed to Ghanaians to use the Golden Jubilee Celebration as a means of arousing a “full consciousness” of Ghana's “great heritage.” In the months that followed, the 50th Anniversary Celebration Committee organized a series of events to commemorate the role of the institution in the history of the Gold Coast and Ghana, including a formal dinner during which the assembled guests joined together to singKorle Bu Oyiwala doŋŋ, a popular tribute to the hospital sung in the local language of Ga (see Figure 1). Several months later, at the closing ceremony, the Committee unveiled a statue of Gordon Guggisberg, the British governor credited with building the hospital, an iconic image that is still standing in front of the hospital today.