Villagers of Kerewan Dumbokoto have launched a campaign appealing for support from philanthropists and Gambians to help them complete the construction of their community hospital. The Central River Region settlement’s youths initiated a “Tesito” to construct a hospital for the community.
Muhammed Kanjura, the Village Development Committee’s spokesperson said the main objective of constructing the hospital is to help the village and its surrounding communities to access timely healthcare.
“Access timely healthcare has been a nightmare for our village and its surroundings because of the 14 kilometers distance from the nearest hospital in Bansang. The road is also so bad that sometimes our pregnant women will give birth on donkey or horse carts while being taken to hospital. So, the village youths find this horrible to accept and so we decided to start the process of constructing this hospital,” he said.
He said there were occasions during the rainy season when they would be forced to take their patients or pregnant women in the rain to hospital.
“Our people encounter a lot of pain before reaching the hospital in Bansang and in some instances they will bleed a lot before they reach the hospital,” he said.
He said the village is surrounded by ten other villages which will all directly benefit from the hospital when completed.
“The sad part of it is that the government is aware of it but they wouldn’t do anything about it. We feel marginalised and that is not right,” he said.
He said the work started a few years ago but because of financial issues they could not continue.
He commended one Mawdo Marena, a native of the village residing in Germany for being supportive to the implementation of the project.
“Before we started the construction, we engaged health authorities at the Bansang hospital who guided us through and gave us advice on what we needed to do. Now, we want to appeal for the government and anybody who could help us to do so,” he said.
Julaba Fatty, the Alkalo of the village emphasized the importance of the hospital in the community while pleading for help.
“My people are suffering to access healthcare.
Bansang is very far from the village and this is affecting our people. The hospital will ease the burden on us. The hospital is well-planned and it is designed in a way that will accommodate many patients. If you have a sick person during the rains if you are not lucky the person will die,” Alkalo Fatty narrated.
