By: Mariama Njie
Complimenting government efforts when it comes to blood supply in healthcare facilities in the country, Join Hands to Save a Baby Initiative on Saturday launched a Maternal Blood Bank Project to complement the effort of the Ministry of Health in the fight against preventable deaths across maternity Units.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the event, Abdoulie Badjie on behalf of Join Hands to Save a Baby said the foundation was established in 2013 by Amie Jarju, a Gambian based in UK.
He dilated on the establishment saying the founder who had visited the brother’s wife in Brikama Maternity Unit discovered that the facilities using there are below standard, which prompted her to establish Join Hands to Save a Baby Initiative.
He disclosed that Join Hands to save baby has been engaged in so many activities such as providing baby clothes and TV sets across maternities in the country.
He added that one of the foundation’s biggest achievements this year is the creation of unitary installation of 4 new incubators at Maternity Ward in Bwiam General Hospital.
Honorable Rohey Malick Lowe, Mayor of Banjul applauded Amie Jarju and her team for setting up the foundation.
Stating that “Amie’s concern for the maternity ward couple with the predicament of how Gambian women were sacrificing their lives each day during childbirth is a cause for concern.”
Mayor Lowe encouraged citizens of Banjul to actively donate blood at the blood bank to ease the continue struggle in searching or pleading to people for blood donation.
Speaking on behalf of Minister of Health, Dr. Mariama Drammeh said severe bleeding during delivery or after childbirth is the commonest cause of maternal maternity, which contributes to around 31% of maternal deaths.
“Blood transmission has been identified as one of the key lifesaving interventions for the management of pregnancy,” she stated.
She noted that blood transmission is an important part of day to day clinical practice and it is not always available for the blood product to reach the patient.
When it comes to donating blood, Gambians have different concepts, but just to be rest assured that blood donation is very safe and has many benefits such as preventing high risk of heart attack, she noted.
Meanwhile, she said the Project is a hope that can change the lives of Gambian women.
Top Cuban official brands Africa’s contribution to Cuban culture undeniable
Top Cuban official María Inés Álvarez Garay has confirmed the contribution of Africa to Cuban culture and identity describing the continent’s contribution as ‘undeniable’.
Speaking to GRTS at the end of the National Culture Day of her country, she said that the musical, dance and religious expressions that came to us from that continent were mixed with others, to form a genuinely Cuban culture.
She said: “the presence on the Caribbean island of African slaves, their customs, habits of life, religiosity, songs, dances, identification with nature and the use of medicinal plants, now known as Phytotherapy, left traces on the identity and the Cuban culture, formed on the basis of a broad process of transculturation as a result of the mixture of Indian, Hispanic, African and other peoples’ roots.”
She added: “health workers from the Greater Antilles currently working in the Gambia have become more sensitive, more human beings, and more qualified professionals, as they meet this brotherly African people.”
She assured that at the same time the members of the BMC are today better people and better revolutionaries because, as eternal Commander in Chief Fidel Castro always said: Revolution means more culture.
She believed that this fertile walk around the world, providing health, hope, love and solidarity has made us much more cultured, and has increased and overflowed that immense pride that we feel in being Cuban, legitimate and authentic Cubans.
“The BMC began in Gambia the Day for the National Culture of his country on October 10th with a tribute ceremony for the Day of the Cry of Independence on the Caribbean island, in which the collaborators who faced and fought covid-19 on the red line were deservedly stimulated,” she said.
She recalled that a call was also launched for all legitimate, dignified and Creole Cubans to join and flood social networks with the rich flavor of our traditional music and dances, our art and our tasty food “, on the occasion of October 20th , Culture Day in the Antillean nation.
