By Buba Gagigo
The Officer-in Charge at the Farato clinic have highlighted the successes the facility registered over the years but still has challenges.
Kebba S. Kinteh, the Officer-In-Charge first stated the numerous achievements they made in the past years.
“The facility has made numerous achievement for the past years among which were the establishment of trekking sites, renovation of the labour ward toilets, 24hrs health service delivery and a good coverage on the health facility key performance indicators and the distribution of donation to the beneficiaries like baby materials to our mothers who delivers in the facility,” he said.
On the contrary, OIC Kinteh went on to state the challenges that the facility is battling with, which need to be addressed.
“However, there are some challenges the facility is battling with and include insufficient health staff, inadequate water supply, poor ambulance service, dilapidated structures and lack of laboratory services. We send patients outside the health center to do basic laboratory services. No office for data entry clerks, cashiers, and a security officer. Our road network to the main highway is still a challenge especially in the rainy season for both patients and staff,” he said.
Meanwhile, the public health officer at the facility, Lamin N.S. Fofana said 16, 653 patients have been seen at the outpatient department seeking medical care; out of which 6 653, 4703 (28%) are patients under the age of 5 years; while 11, 950 (72%) are patients above 5 years of age.
“On average the facility is seeing 392 patients below 5 years, and 996 for above 5 years; and the total monthly average of patients seen is usually 1, 388. Antenatal care is of paramount importance when it comes to birth preparedness for safe delivery,” he said.
Fofana continued that the facility has provided antenatal care services to over 3, 000 pregnant women, both newly registered and those registered during their first trimester; also over 3, 000 women have revisited the facility for their routine antenatal care services.
“In regard to obstetric services, the health center has conducted 523 deliveries of which 485 (93%) were all delivered by skilled personnel while 4 stillbirths were registered for the whole of 2021. No maternal death was registered for the year. As a minor health facility, some of the care and services needed to be provided to the patients are sometimes beyond the capacity of the facility due to the availability of material and skill personnel in managing those conditions.
“In that regard, they (patients) need to be immediately evacuated to the tertiary level to save the lives of the patients. And Farato health center has referred a total of 223 comprising maternal, neonatal and OPD cases. The facility also provides family planning service which includes commodities like injectables, pills, intrauterine devices, implants and barrier methods,” he added.
The public health officer also said 891 people have opted for family planning services from the facility, majoring of which are women.
“The public health unit with its primary objective of preventing people from diseases and health events has vaccinated over 80% of children and pregnant mothers on vaccine preventable diseases. It has also registered 2, 478 people for birth certificates, out of which, 1, 349 are above the age of 5 years, 1081 are between the ages of 1-5. Non-Gambia parents were 57 and those born out of the Gambia were 13.
“As we are all aware of the current pandemic that has affected all countries in the world, and Gambia has not been exempted by the virus. Government has devised ways of preventing people from contracting the virus which is Covid-19 among is to get everyone vaccinated. The facility has embarked on different campaigns and vaccinated over 2000 People against covid 19 in its catchment area for the year of 2021. The facility has also provided voluntary testing services to people during the activity, 6 people were positive of covid from a total test of 25 people,” he concluded.
The Officer-in Charge, Kebba S. Kinteh, and the public health officer, Lamin NS Fofana at the Farato clinic made the disclosure at a prize giving ceremony the clinic management organised in recognition of the services rendered by the staff in 2021.
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