By Isaac Ato Mensah
\nAccra \u2013 15 May 2020<\/p>\n
Vicky Quarshie, a headache nurse at the Hull NHS Trust, will be laid to rest today 15 May.<\/p>\n
The burial service will take place at Haltemprice Chapel at 12:30 UK time.<\/p>\n
It will be available to Facebook friends and on the funeral home\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
The middle aged nurse died after a short illness.<\/p>\n
Born Victoria Louise Banks, the British nurse married my uncle Samuel Ofori Quarshie, a nurse, whom she met at University of Hull, UK.<\/p>\n
They had two children Lauryn and Robert.<\/p>\n
Once upon a time Vicky came to Accra to visit her Ghanaian family.<\/p>\n
She tried on kaba with slit, she ate fufu, she put on sun shades.<\/p>\n
She was just human.<\/p>\n
Then she accompanied the ladies in the family to Makola.<\/p>\n
There hell broke lose.<\/p>\n
The Makola women jested, mocked, taunted, laughed, scoffed at Vicky.<\/p>\n
Reason?<\/p>\n
A \u201cWhite lady\u201d was not expected to be as big as they the Makola women were.<\/p>\n
Vicky spoke no Ghanaian languages.<\/p>\n
So naturally she memorised some repetitive expletives and risqu\u00e9 innuendoes, and kept asking what they meant.<\/p>\n
The Ghanaian family massaged the words and turned to hit back at the traders.<\/p>\n
The team did not abandon their mission, but by all accounts it was a helpless scene, shopping lane after shopping lane, at the Makola No. 2 Market in Accra.<\/p>\n
About that same time, in July 2007, I visited the UK.<\/p>\n
At Gatwick, I was kept from 8am local time to 5pm local time.<\/p>\n
At 5pm, after several interviews bordering on my mission in the UK during which I had tell the immigration officer to eff off, she then asked me to sign a form on which had been ticked that I had been \u201cdelayed\u201d.<\/p>\n
I protested.<\/p>\n
I wanted her to tick \u201cdetained\u201d.<\/p>\n
The immigration officer refused because she knew what I was up to.<\/p>\n
Besides if I refused to sign off on the form, then I was not going to be released.<\/p>\n
After I had signed, she said, \u201cYou are free to go; take your passport\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what did you find?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n
Where I was kept was nothing but a detention centre within Gatwick.<\/p>\n
There were other persons, Asian by physiognomy, and there was TV and newspapers, and snack.<\/p>\n
When Uncle Sam and I were driving to Hull, we surmised that UK immigration were probably looking for signs of drugs.<\/p>\n
We arrived home at Willerby Road, Hull and East Riding, at about 8pm, and there was Vicky, red-eyed.<\/p>\n
She had only one question: What did they ask you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were not sure I would return to Ghana,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a disgrace,\u201d Vicky said, furious.<\/p>\n
In protest, and in living up to my avowed protest on British immigration record, I left the UK, earlier, having promised myself not to go there again.<\/p>\n
I have not.<\/p>\n
Vicky also never stepped in ghana again from the Makola disgrace.<\/p>\n
In the UK, I was curious to check my diabetic status.<\/p>\n
Vicky took me to a clinic where all the tests were done: I was not diabetic.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile in ghana just weeks earlier I had been declared diabetic and placed on medication.<\/p>\n
When I returned to ghana, I went straight to the lab to demand answers.<\/p>\n
There the staff admitted the machines were running on expired reagents; that the government\u2019s contract with the company that serviced the lab had hit some bottlenecks just about the scheduled servicing time which coincided with when I had my sugar test.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut why do you not disclose this to your clients but you keep doing this?\u201d, I charged.<\/p>\n
It was a terrible nationwide situation since it was the same company that worked for all Ghana Health Service labs.<\/p>\n
Vicky Quarshie was a headache nurse, devoting her entire career to those who suffered extreme headaches.<\/p>\n
Vicky booked an appointment to Hull Daily Mail, which she read daily, drove me there, and lobbied hard for me to get a short internship training but the documentation from my school in Ghana did not materialise.<\/p>\n
Lauryn and Robert made all the neighbours in the quiet neighborhood know about Ghana.<\/p>\n
On the swing, little Lauryn would yell: \u201cHello brother Ai-sa-a-a-ac, can you fly me into Gha-a-a-a-n-a-a-a.<\/p>\n
Thank you Vicky for the Lion\u2019s children\u2019s Bible.<\/p>\n
To Uncle Ofori, I say \u201cCheer up, \u2018Kingston town is the place I love to be’….your sweet cherry has fought a good fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rest in peace, Vicky. Nantsew yie….. Yaaw\u0254 y\u025b hej\u0254l\u0254 mli.<\/p>\n
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Writers and Shakespeares Ghana Limited exist to be a moral and intellectual guide to the best practice of PR and integrated communications around the world, beginning with Ghana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"