๐ ๐๐๐๐ซ ๐๐ข๐ญ๐ก๐จ๐ฎ๐ญ ๐๐๐ฒ: ๐ ๐๐จ๐๐ญ๐จ๐ซโ๐ฌ ๐๐ข๐ฅ๐๐ง๐ญ ๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง๐๐ฒ ๐จ๐ ๐๐ง๐๐ฎ๐ซ๐๐ง๐๐ ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ซ๐จ๐ฏ๐ข๐๐๐ง๐๐
There are stories we live through that become turning points. Transitions and or breakthroughs, not just for us, but for everyone who encounters them. For nearly a year, I walked a path that tested my endurance, my faith, and my vision. What sustained me was not a pay-check, but Providence.
This is a glimpse into a chapter of my upcoming autobiography (releasing in less than 3 months), where I open my heart to share the untold struggles, silent victories, and sacred lessons that shaped my journey, and continue to shape my path. Nine Months Without Pay in 2024: A Trial by Shadows
๐๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐จ๐ง๐ญ๐ก๐ฌ ๐๐ข๐ญ๐ก๐จ๐ฎ๐ญ ๐๐๐ฒ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐๐๐: ๐ ๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ฅ ๐๐ฒ ๐๐ก๐๐๐จ๐ฐ
When I began my two-year house job by June 30, 2021, I stepped into a well-worn path that many newly posted medical professionals in Ghana know too well. Itโs working tirelessly without pay for months. For the first three months, I laboured faithfully, showing up daily with unwavering commitment and care, before I received part of what I was owed by end of August 31, 2021.
It wasnโt unusual. In fact, by then, it had become almost painfully normalised. Most new staff were conditioned to wait at least three or more months before seeing their first salary. Over time, the delays worsened. Four to six months became standard norm. It was daunting. But we bore it, and trusted the sacrifice would eventually be rewarded.
Three years later, by December 31, 2023, I found myself again standing at a new threshold. This time, as a permanent staff at the Ho Teaching Hospital, Ho. I had grown, not just professionally but also in understanding my lifeโs purpose.I was then in the process of establishing myself as a public health practitioner and consultant-yes, a journey I continue to walk to this day. I poured myself into advanced degrees, and staked every dime and dollar I had into building the future that blended career and impact. Despite the financial drain of these pursuits, I felt hopeful. I was stepping into what I now believe is a new and stable season.
Ho became more than just my workplace. It became home. Itโs rhythm mirrored mine; young, determined and evolving. There was, and still is this sense of belonging, purpose and progress in the air. I was eager to finally earn and recover from the heavy personal investments I had made between 2022 and 2024.
Ministry was beginning to thrive, not merely in numbers, but in clarity of vision. My academic voice was finding its strength, and my clinical role was expanding in reach and depth. Yet, beneath all this visible growth, a deeper work was unfolding within me. I was beginning to gain clarity on my lifeโs purpose, and how to anchor my calling and align my pursuits with Godโs assignment for me.
It became clearer how the Young and Influential Group, Africa, and the Mathias Edor Ministry, IntโI were not just initiatives, but vessels through which this divine mandate would be fulfilled. Each step, each sacrifice, and each unfolding opportunity was shaping a roadmap of purpose, teaching me how to steward influence, raise leaders, and model Christ at the intersection of faith, health, and global impact.
As is customary for newly recruited staff under the Ministry of Health (and others I suppose), salary payments are expected to begin four to six months after assumption of duty.
I officially began working on December 1, 2023. So, like many before me, I expected the first pay check to arrive by earliest by March 31, ๐๐๐๐ or May 31, 2024 at the latest. I was prepared for this usual delay, but not for what followed.
March passed. So did April. Then May. Each month, I inquired, the response was always the same: โNext month, definitely.โ Human Resource spoke those words like a refrain, always hopeful but never fulfilled.
By June 01, 2024, I had begun my seventh month of unpaid service. Still, I showed up. I ran shifts, responded to emergencies, and carried out my responsibilities, not out of obligation, but because this was more than a career to me. It was an offering.
By August 31, 2024, nine months had passed. I had poured myself into work without receiving a single dime or dollar, in compensation. It wasnโt just physically draining, it was emotionally brutal, and mentally exhausting. I was sustaining myself on borrowed money, silent prayers, and a will strengthened by divine conviction and providence.
Outwardly, I wore the face of composure. I was a medic, respected and relied upon. But inside, I wrestled with quiet exhaustion, shame and fraustration, and a deepening sense of injustice. How could a nation lean so heavily on its healthcare workers, yet consistently delay their most basic and rightful dues? Like How?, How?
Then came a flicker of hope. Our names finally appeared on the government payroll system in August, 2024, as we were told then. But rather than a long-awaited bulk payment, we received only that monthโs (August, 2024โs) salary. The arrears for the previous eight months remained pending. โNext month,โ they said again. And September, 2024 arrived with yet another single monthโs pay. Still no arrears. It was surreal, nearly laughable.
Finally, in October, 2024, nearly a full year after I had assumed duty, the arrears were paid. It was one lump sum. One wave of bittersweet relief and unspoken gratitude. I was truly thankful, not just because I had been paid, but because I had survived. I had weathered a storm that many quietly endure, yet few talk about openly. I had stood through it without quitting, without compromising, and without letting it embitter my spirit.
The world often sees clinicians through a lens of prestige and privilege, but rarely through the sacrifice and the silence that underpins our journeys. Behind the stethoscope and the white coat are stories of survival and resilience. Mine is just one among many, but it is still mine nonetheless, etched with lessons that no lecture hall or textbook could have given.
And in that prolonged silence of waiting, something sacred happened: clarity. It is often in the pressure cooker of delayed promises that purpose refines itself. Those months, painful as they were, became a period of personal refinement and transformation. It was in those months of scarcity, solitude, and prayer that I made some of the most defining decisions of my life. They were key decisions that have shaped my โnowโ into what is already one of my most fruitful, fulfilling and best years (2025) yet.
I learned that Godโs grace does not always spare us from the storm. Sometimes, it sustains us through it. I learned that leadership is not only built in stages of public victory, but also in hidden valleys of personal testing, growth and refinement. That joy can coexist with pain. That hope does not disappoint, even when itโs painfully delayed.
Looking back now, I do not carry any resentments. Instead, I carry reverence, for a season that taught me resilience, for a God who never failed, and for a path that continues to unfold with purpose and quiet beauty.
This triad of years: 2022, 2023, and 2024, has now become a holy memorial for me. Not merely of the hardship endured, but of the strategic stakes, and blessed preparations, and sacred refinements. While I laboured without pay, heaven is scripting a story worth telling. And this, this is only the beginning of a symphony still being composed.
Looking back, I realise that storms donโt just come to destroy us. They come to refine us. These months without pay became a crucible of faith, character, and leadership. I learned that grace is not the absence of storms, but the strength within them. I discovered that delayed rewards can carry deeper meaning than immediate gratification.
I am profoundly grateful: to God, who never failed me; to family and friends who stood by me; and to every colleague and healthcare worker who continues to labor with dignity despite the weight of systemic challenges.
๐๐พ My prayer is that my story becomes more than mine: that it inspires you to endure your own trials with hope, faith, and resilience. And I ask that you journey with me as I prepare to share the full story in my upcoming autobiography.
โจ If this touched you, share it, reflect on it, and remember: your waiting season is not wasted, it is shaping you for greater impact.
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