The Bamenda Regional Hospital
“We’ll continue to provide Health Services to the Public Without Discrimination”
-Dr. Denis Nsame after
reception of Excellence Award
The Director of the Bamenda Regional Hospital, Dr. Denis
Nsame has unequivocally stated that the hospital will put in every possible
effort to make sure that it stays on top as far as the provision of health
services to the public is concerned. To achieve this feat, the Director of the
Regional Hospital has promised to provide services to the public without
discrimination. He also wades through the story of the Bamenda Regional
Hospital from it's creation. He doesn’t equally loose sight of the fact that the
community has and will continue to contribute towards the successes of the
Bamenda Regional Hospital.
Interviewed by
Francis Ekongang Nzante.
Excerpts:
Can you shed some light on the history of the Hospital?
………
This hospital went functional at this present site in 1956. It started at a different place, that was at Upstation here in Bamenda before finally coming to this site in April 1956.
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What's been those key changes in this hospital in the past ten years?
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 |
| Dr. Denis Nsame |
A lot of changes have taken place in the Bamenda Regional Hospital in the last ten years. In terms of services, there’s the imaging center which improves diagnosis of diseases and helps the doctors to diagnose better and improve upon the way patients are managed. There’s also the Dialysis Center. The Presidential decision to put Dialysis Centers in the ten Regions of Cameroon has helped in that direction. This caters for people who have kidney problems. We also started Endoscopic Surgery. You know that medicine has evolved. This means surgery without opening the skin. We started this in Obstetrics and Gynecology where you may have Utopic Pregnancy that is not ruptured. In such cases we may do the operation without rupturing the abdomen. We have cases of women with blocked Fallopian Tubes. Such cases can be handled with Endoscopic Surgery. We simply send the pipes and monitor everything from the screens. Our team in the theater and the Gynecologists have been trained in this. There was also the construction of the Hospital's Public Toilet. That was a community project. A lot of people come to the hospital. You have the visitors, those who take care of the sick amongst others. This initiative was realised by my predecessor Dr. Kinge Thompson Njie. It was a wonderful project and people now have a cleaner place to ease themselves when the need arises.
Within the past ten years, the hygiene and sanitation unit has been reinforced.
With the Advent of the crisis, there have been cases of trauma, gunshots and bleeding cases. WHO also came in with human resource to increase the capacity of the emergency. When COVID 19 came, it took us all aback. Twenty-five VIP rooms were constructed that we are using as isolation centers in cases of COVID 19 or any other pandemic outbreaks. Briefly, these are some of the changes in the past ten years.
……..
Can you revisit some of the challenges that you inherited when you took over as director of the hospital?
………….
In taking over as Director of the hospital in 2019 I had a road map from the Regional Delegation of Public Health. Mother and Child Health or Maternal Mortality is a concern. This is a priority area as far as health is concerned. That’s the challenge that I had in this nursery. This was the first project that I carried out to make sure that premature children were better taken care of. This involved increasing the Plato technic, the incubators and renovating the unit. The Post Natal Wards were also renovated. With the onset of the crisis, the number of surgeries were increasing and theaters were becoming smaller. We had just two operating theaters with eight surgeons. It was really small so we had to increase it to four theaters.
Another challenge that we had was that of unpaid bills. The prices at the hospital here are very affordable and when patients come here they have to chip in something but there are some services that are free. This notwithstanding, the amount of unpaid bills kept increasing.…………
Have you had any equipment related challenges?
………….
We had a problem with the CT Scan but we now have a new one thanks to hierarchy. We also had some problems with our Dialysis Machines. The generators in the Dialysis Center had problems. The Minister donated eight new dialysis machines. All the other ones were replaced. We presently have nine machines. These challenges have been resolved but what still has to be looked at is the mammography. The Minister has promised to do something about this so that we can better handle cases of breast cancer. We also have issues with our Central Oxygen Supply. This is because when COVID 19 came, the demand for Oxygen was very high. There is that need to have a central supply so that all a patient needs is to stay in bed and get connected.
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What about the disposal of waste from the hospital?
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There is a large incinerator at the level of the Regional Delegation of Public Health. At the Regional Hospital there are two points of incineration. These incineration points were built by the World Health Organisation. In the hospital, wastes are categorised. There is household waste which is handled normally. There’s Biohazard wastes. This is made up of things like needles, body parts, placentas amongst others. These are things that should be well disposed of and need an incinerator.
…………
How prepared is the Bamenda Regional Hospital to tackle
the multiple diseases that presently affect the Region?
…………..
We need to continue tackling diseases and the main approach
should be that of surveillance. At all the entrances to the hospital we should
be able to identify certain key signs. You may see a child with week limbs.
This could be Acute Flaccid Paralysis. When you see somebody who has been
having recurrent fever and convulsions you should investigate because it could
be Meningitis. All the 42 Doctors, the Nurses and other personnel all
constitute the surveillance team. All the entrance points to the hospital are constantly
under surveillance to make sure that we look for these diseases with pandemic potential. When there’s coughing,
body pains and feverish conditions, these are indications of COVID 19 and such
cases are encouraged to undergo a test.
Further more, we haven’t over looked the fact that Communication
and Sensitization Campaigns will remain an essential ingredient in our approach.
The public is still not aware of many things and many affected people only come
to the hospital when their infections are already far gone. Our role is not
only to wait for diseases but to be proactive. We should look for means to
prevent the outbreak of these diseases. In our campaigns, we encourage people to
eat well, sleep well and involve physical exercises in their lives.
There are diseases that are preventable through vaccination.
There’s our New Born Infant Welfare Clinic. We have about eleven to twelve
antigens that we give them. We also vaccinate
them.
Presently we are carrying out massive campaigns against COVID
19.
……………….
What is the general capacity of the hospital in terms of
number of beds, wards etc?
…………..
The Regional Hospital Bamenda has about 30 structures and
the services offered here are those regularly offered in General Hospitals. Here
you have everything that you can get from any Regional Hospital. The hospital
has four hundred beds and a staff pool of about 512 among whom 42 are Medical
Doctors and 19 specialists.
For the services, we have Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Obstetrics
and Gynecology. We also have daycare. There are some huge programmes like HIV
Care where we have about 5000 clients who have been receiving treatment. I am
happy to tell you that 80% of them are virally suppressed. This means that they
are presently living normal lives. That is the success of this unit. There are
also other specialised units like the Dialysis Unit and the Imaging Center.
…………
Another phase of COVID 19 Campaigns was just launched by
the ministry. What is the role of the Regional Hospital in these campaigns?
……………
We have four domains in the Ministry of Public Health. There
is the domain of Health Promotion, Health Prevention, Disease Management and
Institutional Support. With regards to COVID 19, the minister just took his
Booster Dose and we recently launched the campaigns at the Governor’s Office in
Bamenda. My staffs are participating in the campaigns. Firstly, the Regional
Hospital is a Vaccination Center. Secondly, the Regional Hospital is also a
Center for the Management of Adverse Effects. If there’s any adverse effect,
all you need to do is go to any health facility or come to the Regional
Hospital where these adverse effects will be attended to for free. So we are
carrying out Vaccinations and managing Adverse Events. One Hundred and Three
Thousand cases have been vaccinated in the North West Region. We've not had any
adverse effects.
…………….
Following the exceptionally successful operation on the
boy from Lebialem, what steps have been taken to make sure that the Regional
Hospital stays on top as far as ground breaking health initiatives are
concerned?
………..
You should be aware that in 2021, we emerged as the best
Regional Hospital in the country. This year, we also received an Award of
Excellence which I just collected in Yaounde at the Red Cross Center. We will
continue working hard and delivering health services to the public without
discrimination. The operation of the boy was exceptionally successful and
really went viral. I want to thank all the donors and all those who supported
us. I will also like to thank Mr. Fanuel Habimana who was here.
…………..
In the wake of Bill related problems at the Bafoussam
Regional Hospital, What challenges have you had with regards to the
accumulation of bills by patients?
……………
Instructions from the Minister indicate that we should treat
the patient before receiving any payments especially when the situation is life
threatening.
My colleague in Bafoussam was certainly faced with a similar
problem of unpaid bills and was looking for ways to sort things out. From
January to September we've had 42 millions of unpaid bills. When we sit in the
Managing Board Committee, we contemplate on how this problem can be solved. The
situation in Bamenda may not be the same like the one in the West Region where
there’s no armed conflict. Traditionally, people here pay their bills but
there’s always a percentage of paupers who will always find it impossible to
clear their bills. This is pushed over to the state but when it reaches a
certain amount it becomes worrying because it touches our capital. It becomes
impossible to replenish our pharmacy for example. The ministry doesn’t buy our
drugs neither does it repair our equipment. The Ministry doesn’t also pay the
temporal staff that we have at the Regional Hospital. The ministry is however
always ready that we come and discourse these challenges and look for ways
forward. I also thank our community, the Bamenda City Council, the Bamenda I
Council amongst others who have been paying the bills of some paupers. The City
Mayor has been here. The Bamenda University Women have cleared unpaid bills of
up to 3.2 millions FCFA at the Dialysis Center. The list is long as there are
many well wishers out there. We have a Social Center here at the Hospital. They
are the ones who determine if the patient is a pauper or not. My message to the public is that we look
forward to a universal health coverage. A third party who could come in and
settle the unpaid bills of paupers.
Tel: +237696896001/678401408/671262198
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