Banjul, July 18 The Gambia Journal
Though complaints about shortages of drugs and lapses in the service delivery system in Gambian hospitals have been many and frequent over the last several years, things appear to be getting worst over the past two months, The Gambia Journal has learnt. Last Saturday, July 14th for instance, there was no food available for patients at the main referral Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital. Mrs. Sabally, who has been staying on the hospital grounds for the past three weeks, looking after an ill father-in-law, told The Gambia Journal that there are no medicines available at the hospital. She said she had only a D25-note remaining of the D1230 her relatives and village folk were able to collect and give to her to meet the expenses of bringing over the old man for treatment from the CRD village of Nyanga Banta. “Before, I used part of the money to provide myself with meals bought at the eating-joints at the Banjul market, but now I have to provide for both myself and the patient from the amount.”, Mrs. Sabally said. Pointing at the waiting crowd of people who are also waiting on sick relatives lying in the shade of a tree in the hospital grounds, she said, “You cannot imagine what we have to go through in this place.” Apart from the mosquitoes, we permanently run the risk of being raped by the hospital guards at night.” Scores of people, most of them women, in charge of looking after their sick relatives, nodded in agreement with Mrs. Sowe’s complaints. There are no toilet facilities available for them and to be allowed into the hospital bathrooms and toilets at night they are forced to bribe the security guards either with money or with sex, she claimed. “Look, they told me I have to go and buy these medicines for my mother from the pharmacy outside, but the lady from Banjul who shares room with her gets it directly from the nurse because they are relatives or friends, I don’t know,” another woman who would not give her name, put in.” Leaving a sick relative to the whims and caprices of the nurses and other hospital workers, tantamount to “leaving them behind to die,” she stressed. This is a devilish place, and no one has any sympathy for the other, she told the Gambia Journal. “If they know you have got some money, you will be treated fairly well, but when that money finishes, you are absolutely forgotten and be sure that you are on your own. The authorities could have built a simple shed for people in our situation, but no.”
Investigating further, The Gambia Journal was told of numerous horror stories. We were told, for example of the selling of body parts in the mortuary of the hospital. “If a rich man passes away and is taken to the hospital, body parts like the hands, ears, or toes would be missing in hours, a man who has been working in the hospital for over twenty-five years asserted. “If he is man with many children, they will cut of his penis and it will be sold to marabouts or their clients. They believe the amputated penis can be used to make a potent medicine for people with few or no children. Mostly it is tongue, the penis, and the breast of a woman or sometime internal organs that are cut away and sold.” The informant claims that there is a ring specialized on such bestialities that operate around the mortuary of the RVTH. Asked why he had not lodged complains on his allegations to the hospital authorities, he said, “but they already know this more than I do.” Trying to talk to the PRO (Public Relations Officer) of the hospital proved futile, as he kept on hanging up the phone on The Gambia Journal correspondent, saying he would only talk to reporters from newspapers registered in The Gambia.
