Saint Elizabeth Catholic Hospital Shisong, Kumbo
It’s Creation, Growth, Challenges, Achievements and Aspirations.
By Francis Ekongang Nzante
The Saint Elizabeth Catholic Hospital Shisong was created on the 15th of November 1935 as a small dispensary and Maternity by five Reverend Sisters from Italy. They were doing mostly deliveries and consultations at the time were just about twenty people. It was later recognised by the Government of Cameroon on the 13th of June 1952 and given the registration number 224.
On the 1st of February 1954 there was the creation of what is known today as the School of Health Sciences attached to the hospital. The school today is training State Registered Nurses, Laboratory Technicians, State Registered Midwives and Nurse Assistants. In 2002, the capacity of the Saint Elizabeth Catholic General Hospital continued to increase as more services were added. A Diagnostic Cardiology Department was created in collaboration with two Italian Associations.The Italian Associations were Bambini Cardiopatici Nel Mondo and the Cuore Fratello as well as the Tertiary Sisters of Saint Francis. In 2009 a full fletched Cardiac Center was inaugurated by the Minister of Public Health Andre Mama Fouda to serve Cameroon and the CEMAC Sub-Region. This constituted a significant step towards the expansion of the hospital to what it is today which is generally known as the Shisong Hospital Complex run by the Tertiary Sisters of Saint Francis whose sole intention is to provide affordable quality Services to sick people who come to the hospital. The Hospital has been serving as a referral hospital and has been receiving patients from Bui Division and the National Triangle.
Some patients come from neighbouring Nigeria and Gabon. These patients come mostly for the specialized services. Some of the common health pathologies the hospital has had within Bui Division include cases of Malaria, Gastritis, respiratory track In fections, hypertension, diabetes as well as cardiovascular diseases. The COVID 19 pandemic also posed its challenges to the hospital.
The activities of the hospital have been designed in
a way that permits the population of Bui to also benefit from it. The services
are affordable both at the hospital complex and at the satellite centers.
The Hospital offers out patient consultations (both
general and specialized), hospitalisation services, imagery, diagnostics and
Laboratory Services. There’salso the Blood Bank and Psychopathology for
Cervical Cancer Screening.
The Primary Health Care Services take care of pregnancies
and vaccinations. There’sthe Gynecoobstetric unit, Pediatric services, physiotherapy,
urology consultations, Surgery, dental services, Ophtamology, Cardiac Diagnostic
Services and Open Heart Surgeries.
The Saint Elizabeth Hospital since its inception has
been actively involved in diagnosing and management of Cardiovascular Diseases
with the expertise of the Cardiologists working there. After inaugurating the
cardiac center, a Resident Surgical Team was put in place. In collaboration
with its national and international partners they had performed 919 Open Heart
Surgeries as at July 2022, 539 Catheterisations and 208 pacemaker implantations.
The number of Surgical Procedures performed so far
has built a lot of experience in the Surgical Team and the number of Surgical
Interventions keep increasing.
With the advent of the Anglophone Crisis, some Surgical Missions have been successfully carried
out by the Shisong Cardiac Center at the Jordan Medical Center in Yaounde. There
have been routine outreach consultations which the hospital started in 2009 in
the South West, Center, West, Littoraland the Far
North Regions as well as other towns in the North
West Region.The administration has made sure that service delivery to the
public is regularly done through periodic surgical visits to Yaounde and Douala
and the deployment of one of its Cardiologists to attend to patients.
Outreach Cardiac Consultations as such have been
Programmed for Yaounde from the 29th to the 30th of August,2022.
The team will continue to the Centre de Santé Marie Therese Baham in the West Region on the 31st.
After that they will consult at the Saint Francis Hospital Ntarsen in Bamenda from
the 1st to the 3rd of September.
The Shisong Cardiac Mobile Team in the months of June
and July carried out consultations in June and July in Nkongsamba, Dschang,
Buea, Douala and a couple of other towns like Ndop. Other sites in some other
towns are being created in efforts to increase the outreach initiatives of the
Cardiac Center. The objectives of the Routine outreach Programme is to make
sure that there’sfollow up of patients who have been diagnosed and are under
treatment.
Because of security challenges, some patients cannot
easily travel to Kumbo and the Hospital has committed itself to bring it’s
services closer to the people through its Routine outreach Programme. This is
carried out after every three months.This means that four outreach consultation
Programmes are carried out each year. This initiative has impacted positively
on the health of patients.
Its not been easy for this mobile team to move
because of security issues. The center suffered heavy losses in equipment and
Medica ion at the onset of the crisis. This occoured during one of their
outreach Programmes. Another challenge has been that of prolonged electricity cuts.The
hospital as such resorted to the use of fuel to run its generator and this has
increased its running cost enormously. Solar Panels are being progressively
installed to run machines in the Cardiac Center and the Imagery and Theater
Units.
There are also many cases that are awaiting surgery
but due to their low income situation, nothing has been done in this direction.
However, through the efforts of the Heart Foundation, some of these cases are
now being taken care of. The hospital has been constantly appealing to possible
donors to help the situation so that these desperate cases can be attended to.
Cameroon Hospitals and Doctors
Email: edevnewspaper@gmail.com/ francoeko@gmail.com
Tell: +237678401408/696896001
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