A special individual at Assin North

The Assin North constituency in Ghana was recently in the news for a parliamentary by-election and continues to reverberate over the saga of its controverted chosen MP James Gyakye Quayson who is facing a court action by the State.

Mr Quayson may be entangled in legalities yet his constituents repose immense trust in him, by re-electing him after the Supreme Court declared that his name be expunged from parliament’s records on the question of not having renounced his dual citizenship at the time.

There is another special person in this constituency with a marvelous citation, and he is called Jonny de-Graft Baiden. He is on record to have been a voluntary blood donor for over three decades. He only stopped donating his blood after health officials advised him against it when he was nearing age 50. At the time of the caveat, he was aged 49, now he is 64.

Jonny de-Graft Baiden who used to work at the Francis Xavier hospital at Assin Foso in the Central region, was moved by his mother’s situation, and so since 1977 when he was in secondary school, he had been donating blood. He had severally elicited the citation ”Your willingness to donate blood any time you are requested to do so is unparalleled and highly commendable”.

The ”O negative blood group” person he is, he regularly donated blood whenever there was a medical emergency.  He had donated blood over 100 times as of the first quarter of 2008. The National Blood Bank, the Korle-Teaching Hospital, and the Cape Coast Regional Hospital were some of the medical facilities which received his blood donation.

Mr. Baiden received an award from the then Assin North District Chief Executive, Mr. Karaikari Apau during Ghana’s Golden Jubilee celebrations.