The Minister of Health Dr Ahmadou Lamin Samateh has responded to calls for his resignation over the raging controversy involving the death of dozens of children through contaminated medicine by arguing that such a move will only be the easy way out of the current crisis. He also added that while there may have been calls for his resignation he equally had numerous calls from many people urging him to stay and do his job and not to abandon the ship at this hour.
Samateh who was addressing an emergency press conference called by his ministry Saturday, extended condolences to the families that lost their children as a result of AKI and to the public for the way and manner the statement delivered by President Adama was conceived. The president outraged the public when he said statistics of the mortality in children does not vary much from that of the past year.
“I have taken full responsibility of this aspect of the statement and efforts will be done to avoid such in the near future,” the minister said.
He used the press conference to appeal to the public for support and collaboration in “this trying time” when the country needs to come together to address the problem at hand.
Dr Samateh further assured the affected families that the government of The Gambia through the Ministry of Health and partners will ensure that necessary actions will be taken to reach to the bottom of the problem and the public will be updated accordingly.
