Elizabeth Agricultural Farmers Association (EAFA) Director, Debali Konteh based in Germany; has donated drugs and equipments to the Connaught hospital valued about Le30m.
The donation was made by Hilfswerk der Bayerichen Apotheker, through the Honorary Consul of Sierra Leone Willi Drechsler in Baden Wurttemberg, Germany.
The Director explained that this is not the first donation the Association has made, “this is my Country and I’ll go all out to help this Country…” he said.
Acting Connaught Hospital Care Manager, Dr Dumbuya Kamara said he is delighted to receive the drugs and equipments; “it will go a long way in helping us to alleviate the chronic shortage of supplies for our patients,” he intimated.
Highlighting the types of drugs received, Dr Kamara said these include; antibiotics, elution, analgesics- pain killers and many more.
He said patients are in dire needs of the drugs “everyday we see people in ominous need of such drugs,” Dr Kamara revealed.
The hospital is really in need of such assistance, he said.
Dr Kamara explained that quite recently “we had a big donation from the US-based Society of International Humanitarian Surgeons.”
Dr Kamara said that a 40 feet container of supplies which was donated included chairs, trolley’s, theater lamps and many more.
The items donated, he said, are presently being supplied to the different departments of the hospital; “we are looking forwards of such donations from humanitarian organizations because the more equipments they received the better it would be for the hospital,” he opined.
Dr Kamara said they intend to keep the drugs in the dispensary and “we would be giving them out to those who really need them like patients who can not pay for their medications and for emergency cases,” he stressed.
Consultant Psychiatrist, Edward Nahim said the gifts are mostly appreciated because “we have constrains in the procurement of drugs and I think it’s very important.”
He explained that at the mental home “we treat both the physical illness of our patient and the mental aspect, “ but unfortunately Dr Nahim added, “most of the drugs donated are for physical treatment like malaria, stomach problems and other illness and there are no Psychiatrist drugs.”
Dr Nahim intimated that drugs are given to mental patients free of cost “as this is a government policy…” all our services are free of cost, he stressed.
He said that although the drugs are few they are better than nothing.
We are going to barely manage them, he said “which means that we are going to treat patients who are desperately ill with the very little that we have.”
“We have been doing this for many years and we have succeeded; whether the donation is big or small we would still work,” he said determinedly.
By Ophaniel Gooding