In the land of Nunyãdume, where the wind once carried wisdom from the mouths of griots to the ears of kings, and where the baobab tree stood not only as shade but as senate, a curious affliction began to spread.
It was not the fever that bends backs, nor the cough that weakens ribs, no, this was a deeper malaise. A sickness of systems. A wasting of common sense. The people still danced, the drums still spoke, but their echoes returned hollow, for the illness had crept not into their limbs, but into the very ligaments of their governance.
Elders whispered that it was madness, not of mind, but of memory, for a nation that forgets the worth of its healers forgets the rhythm of survival itself.
The people of Nunyãdume shook their heads, saying, “This is like cutting your tongue to chew as meat, and cutting your nose to spite your face.” For what nation devours its own healers to cure a crisis? In starving the teachers of doctors, those who birth the minds that stitch wounds and restart hearts, the land turned on itself. And in chasing short-term savings, it mortgaged its future.
The very hands that shape the scalpel were being driven from the classroom, forced to either retreat to the bedside for better pay or fly beyond the horizon where knowledge is honoured and skill is not punished. It was not merely a loss; it was self-inflicted injury, served hot on the platter of policy.
The elderly women of Nunyãdume murmured, not with fear, but with the quiet tremor of those who had seen many seasons. They said, “When the gods mean to destroy a village, they first let madness rest upon its seers.” The murmur spread like a hidden rhythm beneath a steady pulse, faint, but betraying an ailment deep in the nation’s chest. The hearts were still beating, but something in the system stuttered.
You see, in Nunyãdume, the brightest children were not drawn to drums or dances, but to the scalpel and stethoscope. Their parents sang, “Let your mind be sharp, for if your hands cannot farm, your brain must heal.” These children toiled for six years in shrines of science, then served two more years in village clinics where frogs leapt through windows and the only anaesthetic was a prayer.
Eight years, and they were house healers, still not fully grown in the eyes of the system, yet already warding off death.
In other lands, across the mighty rivers that flowed toward the North, healers trained for longer, yes, but they were fed, clothed, and paid even while learning. In the land of Maple Leaves and the Trumpeting Ones, it took eleven years, but even the apprentices walked with more financial dignity.
In the land of Kangaroos, they did not go hungry during training. But in Nunyãdume, only the firewood was seasoned, not the policy.
The villagers thought: If these are the best minds, who teaches them? Surely, the fire that lights such lamps must still be brighter. But alas! The sages who train healers, the consultants, were paid less than the very students they moulded. “Why?” the villagers cried. “Why pay the gardener less than the fruit seller?” And no answer came, only the sound of departing footsteps and boarding passes.
And so, the classroom grew quiet. The chalkboard faded. The masters left the scroll for the scalpel, not for love of blood, but for hunger of bread. Some crossed the great seas, where foreign lands now welcomed them with open hospitals and open cheque books.
There, their wisdom was not doubted, only documented. There, their skills were not wasted, only worshipped. Even the gods of those lands began to lift their voices in wonder, “Give us more from Nunyãdume, they are well-formed.”
Yet back home, the hunters still aimed at the birds perched on their roofs. No longer needing permission to fly, the birds simply left, their wings too wise to stay grounded. For how long can a hen teach a hawk? And how long can a river be forced to flow uphill? Even the chiefs of Nunyãdume, in quiet protest, wondered aloud: “How curious that those who decorate brothels with stained glass now lecture the shrine on virtue.”
In Nunyãdume, a proverb rose: “If the drumbeat changes and the dancer stumbles, don’t blame the dancer — ask who beat the drum.” The policy makers, cloaked in fine kente, forgot that a hospital without healers is just a mortuary with more windows.
And so, Old Torgbuifiam Agbenoxevi, who once diagnosed sicknesses with his eyes alone, sat beneath the neem tree and whispered, “When a goat is called to build a pen, don’t be surprised if it eats the wood.”
The children of Nunyãdume began to ask dangerous questions:
“If training the healer is costlier than treating the sick, why do we underpay the teacher?”
“If we clap when our doctors are accepted abroad, why do we starve the very soil that grew them?”
“If brains are the wealth of a nation, why do we export them like cocoa?”
The wise ones gathered and spoke, not with anger, but with clarity:
Match pay with purpose — for even Herzberg, the sage from far lands of the Two-factor theory of motivation, taught that true satisfaction does not come from coin alone, but from meaning, growth, and recognition.
Pay the teacher well — for if the well dries, all will thirst, even the king. The teacher is not just a vessel of facts, but the potter of nations. Water the roots, not just the leaves — for Maslow reminded us that self-actualisation grows only when needs below are met: hunger first, then purpose.
Retain with respect — not only with money, but with dignity, support, and honour. Vroom’s Expectancy Theory reminds us: people only strive when they believe effort leads to results, and results to rewards they value. Effort without reward is like planting millet in stone. The farmer will not till the land if the harvest is rigged.
Align policy with reality — for you cannot grow maize in a desert and blame the sun. Motivation dies when hope is mocked by poor design.”
And so it was written in the palm leaf chronicles of Nunyãdume:
A nation that underpays its best minds will export its future. No number of hospitals can heal a health system that is bleeding its own healers. If Ghana is proud when its doctors succeed abroad, it must be ashamed when their teachers are forced to beg at home. Fix this injustice, or forfeit the next generation of medical excellence.
The time for poetic mourning is past. The Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, and the Fair Wages Commission must immediately review and rectify the pay structure of medical educators. The builders of healers cannot be paid like clerks.
Let the gongs ring.
Let the drums beat sense into power.
Let the land of Nunyãdume remember — before the birds forget the way back home.
The writer, Paa Dee is Dr. Eugene K Dordoye, a consultant psychiatrist with UHAS, and a Social Justice Advocate
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