By Sulayman Waan
A top doctor at Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital, EFSTH, has said public health facilities lacks adequate medical equipment to fight sickle cell disease I patients.
Speaking to The Voice, Dr Adama Sallah, a paediatrician called on authorities to put more efforts in medical care.
He said: “We do not have enough materials. We do not have enough equipment and we do not have enough consumables.”
He said in order to control sickle cell patient’s health personnel have to do correct diagnosis and can only be achieve by doing haemoglobin electrophoresis.
“We have the machine at EFSTH but it is not being use because we don’t racquet,” he said.
According to him, whenever the EFSTH wants to conduct a test on haemoglobin electrophoresis, they have to take the samples to the Medical Research Council- Gambia (MRCG).
He pointed out there is no such medical equipment in the rural area, revealing that rural health personnel can only do basic test for SCD to show that the patient had sicklier but that test will not enable the health officer to know whether the patient have the disease.
He said: “the only way to confirm if someone has the disease is by doing the haemoglobin electrophoresis test, which we are not able to do right now.”
Dr Sallah said medical doctors need to have sufficient X-rays facility to check the lungs, liver function test as well as series of test for other organs in the human system before treatment commence.
He said the disease is associated with so many complications saying “therefore there is need for authorities to provide apparatus includes electrocardiogram to check the heart, haemoglobin electrophoresis machine and consumable, X-ray facility, blood and urine testing machine, equipment for bacterial culture and sensitivity testing, blood bank fridges and freezers, blood grouping and testing sera and computer for data collection.”
Sickle cell is disease in a group of inherited red blood cell disorders. Healthy red blood cells are round, and they move through small blood vessels to carry oxygen to all parts of the body. Someone who has SCD, the red blood cells become hard and sticky and look like a C-shaped farm tool called a “sickle”.
The sickle cells person die early, which causes a constant shortage of red blood cells. Also, when they travel through small blood vessels, they get stuck and clog the blood flow. This can cause pain and other serious problems such infection, acute chest syndrome and stroke.
