Enyo Asi Bosompra’s life and career changed when she lost her twelve-year old daughter in 2015. Her daughter was a child with special needs who required round-the-clock care and attention.

Enyo's job as a nurse was already demanding and in her own words, she loved her daughter with all that she had.

“That was an experience that has humbled me for my entire life and it has taught me to serve people no matter what,” she says.

Asi is one of Ghana’s most outstanding nurses in cancer care at the country’s leading teaching hospital- Korle-bu. Her dedication to duty and hard work have caught international attention.

“My joy is to see the children who were on the brink of death yesterday, surviving today,” she says.

She has just received the lifetime achievement award for nurses taking care of children with cancer in Africa.
49-year-old Enyo Asi Bosompra has dedicated nearly twenty years looking after children with cancer at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in the Greater Accra Region.

Caring for a condition that costs so much to treat and yet so poorly funded in Ghana, Enyo has found strength under very tough conditions.

In Ghana, about 1,200 children under the age of 15 are estimated to develop cancer annually. In addition to leukaemia, lymphoma, retinoblastoma, Wilms' tumour, soft tissue sarcoma and neuroblastoma are among the most common forms in the country.

Asi says they are not getting the number of children living with cancer to report because of the many myths and misconceptions that people have about the condition.

“To treat cancer in children, you need up to 30,000 Cedis or even more and this scares many parents. The disease is not covered under the health insurance,” she says.

“This award means so much to me. It means someone is watching the work that we are doing and that our work is important. I pray for a future where all children with cancer would have easy access to the care that they need to stay alive,” she says.