Bansang Hospital Wall Project
On January 18th 2006, 8 riders from the UKGSer motorcycle group took a tour of Bansang Hospital, 200 miles upriver from Banjul in The Gambia.
We’d delivered 10 scooters for the use of the Doctors and health workers, donated by UKGSer and friends, along with a 7 Tonne Mercedes truck for use as an ambulance and general transport.
Also delivered were two tonnes of medical supplies, including a defibrillator, blood pumps, medicines and tools, spares for the scooters and a donation to cover a service contract for the scooters.
We’d been prepared to find the place in a poor state of repairs, with hardly any equipment, poor sanitation and decaying buildings, so we weren’t too shocked to find exactly that and asked questions about what we could do in the week we had to work there.
Two hours later however, we were all shocked into silence when we were escorted out onto a large dry mud field backing onto the hills behind Bansang, and were told it was where they buried the babies.
As you can see from the picture, it’s a sad and dirty place…goat faeces litters the whole area as is to be expected in a place open to the bush, and small pieces of cardboard with rocks on top are spread all over the area.
We asked about the cardboard…..
Each piece marks a grave, and the rocks are piled on top to try and stop the Hyenas from coming down every night and taking the bodies.
It isn’t working.
We walked away from the place in silence, no one making eye contact with anyone else in case the tears came.
The second most shocking thing we saw at the hospital was small herds of goat and a couple of cattle wandering through the place- with nothing to stop them, they roam wild and often wander into wards where procedures are being performed, defecating outside buildings and spreading disease.
We asked about building a wall around the area…there are already the remains of the old wall from the hospital’s colonial past, and it’s continued around the back of the nearby staff quarters.
We were told about a nurse who died just before Christmas in the rainy season after stepping on a snake that had come down from the hills behind the area, and how staff were afraid to leave their quarters at night because of the wild dogs and hyenas.
Before we left Bansang, we commissioned a quote for the building of a proper brick wall around the rear of the hospital- we stipulated that it had to be high enough to stop the goats and strong enough to survive the rainy season and be a permanent end to the wild roaming of the scavenging animals, including the hyenas…it will be 329 metres long and join up with the old wall, run behind the baby cemetery and link up with the existing wall behind the staff quarters.
The quote is attached on the last page, and as you can see only comes to £8652.66
(The D- Dhalasi sign should be a £)
With inflation (rife in Gambia) the bill will probably rise to around £9,000, which is what the team who went have pledged to raise, with the help of UKGSer and as many sponsors as we can find.
We already have some of the money, but any help you can give will be greatly appreciated.
UKGSer Bansang Hospital aid team.
