During a two-day training of 20 public health personnel drawn from western health regions 1 and 2 of the West Coast Region and Greater Banjul Area held at the SoS village clinic in Bakoteh recently, officials said the disease has taken an ugly trend in Gambian women and thus required urgent attention. The training was organised by Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) Unit under the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in partnership with WHO Banjul office and UNFPA.
Speaking at the closing ceremony, Ba-Foday Jawara, programme manager, Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) Unit of Ministry of Health and Social Welfare stated: “Cervical cancer in women has been a concern not only to the ministry of health and social welfare but the entire world given its ugly trend causing health risks for our women. The reason to organise this training is to better prepare health workers on cervical cancer screening and management for better control. It comes at the right time because a lot of women are dying from the disease and hence the need to organise such forums in order to give them [health workers] the necessary techniques and tools to combat the disease. We as a ministry cannot just sit down and watch our mothers, sisters and wives die as a result of this disease. It is a big challenge but health workers need to be more committed as care givers to push for greater success in the fight against the disease. I would like to thank all the participants for attending the training despite their busy schedules because this will go a long way in our national drive to improve the health status of our women.”
Famara Fatty, senior programme officer of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, said: “Participants of this training now have huge responsibilities as health workers in regard to the controlling and management of the prevalence of the disease. The information and knowledge learnt in this training would enable us to do something about cervical cancer sooner or later. It is quite unfortunate that counseling is still a problem for many of us here though we received in-service training and during part of our time in secondary school. As health workers, we have to have time for both our patients and some diseases that affect female organs. It is important for us to do proper counseling for them so that we can attract more clients. If we do that, we will be respected within our work place and for what we do. This training is all about getting ready for the big work ahead of us and I hope that we will all go back to our various health facilities to take care of things in a good way.”
]]>
