(JollofNews) – A senior health officer in the Gambia has called for the adoption of a stringent surveillance system to prevent the spread of diseases into the country.
Alieu Sonko, officer in charge of Brikama District Hospital, said Gambian borders are porous and the country needs a strong public health workforce that is grounded with knowledge to maintain surveillance.
The Gambia is bordered by Senegal on three sides except for the Atlantic Ocean. The country remains the business hub in the sub-region for traders from the neighbouring Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Conakry, Nigeria and Ghana.
“Resource should be allocated according to demand; so our demand right now is qualified human resource,” Mr Sonko said.
In 2015, there was an outbreak of measles in the West Coast Region which authorities believed was imported from Guinea Bissau.
At least100 cases were reported in children age 9 months to 15 years; and 79 meningitis cases with 19 deaths in the months of January to September 2015.
According to the National Malaria Sentinel Surveillance System (NMSSS), the Malaria Programmatic Review (MPR) and the Health Information Management Service Statistics of 2014, malaria is endemic in all the regions.
The country’s maternal mortality rate is 433 per 100,000 live births and fertility rates are high at 4.7 per woman in the urban areas and 6.8 per woman in the rural areas and 5.9 nationally, in both urban and rural areas peak fertility occurs between the ages of 25 and 29 (DHS 2013).
Not At The Standard Yet
Brikama lies some 35 km south of Gambia’s capital Banjul, serving the entire West Coast Region, apparently the biggest region in the country with a population of 699,704 inhabitants and a population density of 397, according to a 2013 national census.
The district hospital has the biggest coverage area in the Gambia with its catchment area alone having about 40,000 people. It was renamed district hospital during President Adama Barrow’s administration.
“Name does not matter here, what matters is the quality of service we are delivering. To be honest, the health facility does not reach there yet; it is not at the standard,” Mr. Sonko argued.
With a yearly growth ration of 6 per cent, Brikama continues to expand with small communities connecting to it, leading to the addition and expansion of wards.
During a donation presentation to the hospital last Friday, Mr. Sonko made a compassionate appeal for people to stand by them to save lives, saying “if people really understand the importance of contributing to save lives, they will always participate in providing their health needs.”
Gambia public health policy objective should be a well thought out, comprehensive, affordable and accessible one that require a skilled team of professionals to accomplish our health care goals in a specified time frame.
The foundation should be disease prevention with a national immunization plan guided and supported by health care partners in the subregion and the world. Disease surveillance, prevention and monitoring should be a component of the overall policy objective. Health care education with family planning and nutrition advice should be incorporated at our mosque, churches and schools. Women and children welfare supported by credible foundation like the first lady’s FaBB should be encouraged to develop strategic alliance with international health agencies for funding and logistic support.
A healthy Gambia is a happy Gambia .
God Bless The Gambia
I hope those at the health ministry and the minister are listening. They should get out of their offices to pay a visit to the health center in Brikama to assess the situation themselves.
The call for a tougher border surveillance is unthinkable in this inefficient government. This neocolonialist administration in Fajara that has already sold our sovereignty to Senegal will never have the GUTS to challenge Senegal on any border issue that would dissatisfy/annoy the Senegalese people and their government.
There is a lot of petty theft, cattle rustling, unrecognized sicknesses in the Gambia. The influx of the Senegalese, the Guineans, Bissau Guineans through the Senegal borders is so intense that we have to expect any anything! For the worse, of course!
Responsible governments don’t do things to dissatisfy or annoy other governments but rather do them in favour of better national and sovereign interests. Babu, your choice of words pretty well demonstrate what a dunce you are. Stop using the word ‘dunce’ on people if you don’t know what it means.
Bourne,
I read a bit of the English language at my Alma Mater, so please stop telling me to refrain from using words, in case I don’t know their meaning.
My English is simple because I know simple vocabulary to transmit my ideas and opinions. That’s OK with me.
A government satisfies its people FIRST before any other thing. Inspite of belonging to a broader world order, every well-minded administrator tries to grab what good s/he can give to her/his people before endeavouring for the outside world. Otherwise it’s a USELESS administration.
Our present administration is a Senegal-driven one, so we have no say in our external policies unless we seek the advice of the Senegalese.
I’ll educatively refrain from responding to your provocative/insulting statement:
“Babu, your choice of words pretty well demonstrate what a dunce you are”.
If it were a statement from Bax or Nasty Natty Dread, I would have immediately got on the trail! But it’s from Bourne..
Babu; You’re inglis is much better than mine. No one can misunderstand or misinterpret your opinions. Neither should anyone disrespect your opinions. But I do admire those eminent members of this forum, who would dispute your contributions without resort to using the worst of the inglis language.Such inglis four letter words are favoured by all languages. Something the inglis will have to live with as a legacy of human history.