The Medical Doctor attached to the Kabala Government Hospital, Dr James Conteh has said that, the hospital is faced with a number of constraints among them the lack of adequate equipment to undertake operations.
Dr Conteh said, he used to refer very few cases and the recent one being a patient whose hernia has circulated in his system for over 8 days and that means his intestine has got rotten. “If I had decided to operate him, it would have been a problem since I don’t have all the equipment to undertake such an operation, so I referred him to Freetown”.
Asked whether the hospital is getting constant electricity supply, the doctor said, they are running on a 24 hours government electricity supply. Patients buy fuel which we run for hours in undertaking an operation’.
Speaking to Awoko recently in Kabala, Dr Conteh said, the constraints are too much, “and we see them as a challenge to us. Here people are very vulnerable as they used to come from far off villages and chiefdoms for medical treatments; some come as far as from Krubola and Yefen and for most times at the point of death”. He stated that he is thanking God that, since he was transferred to Kabala and started doing operations, no death has occurred.
According to Dr Conteh, the salary he is getting is a very shameful salary for a medical doctor “We are the least paid doctors in the whole world. I get less than 200 dollars. Salary for nurses is even more discouraging and even porters”. However, he said, ‘this has not discouraged us because this is our national sacrifice that we wanted to become doctors and nurses’
Speaking further, Dr Conteh said, they [hospital] have just two vehicles in the hospital and the one has suffered a breakdown for months and this is a very serious problem.
“I have been here for over three years now as ophthalmologist in the hospital. I am also working as general surgeon in the hospital. The hospital has just 2 doctors, covering 11 chiefdoms and there are 64 Peripheral Health Units’.
Dr Conteh further revealed that he is working with few trained and qualified nurses. Since some nurses are not accepting to come to Kabala on transfer due to housing problem. “We need government attention. The hospital is under construction and we are therefore asking government to fast track its construction.”
By John Baimba Sesay