By Mustapha Jarju
Alieu Kijera, father of a child who died of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) expressed that his child died due to negligence of the Ministry of Health and the Gambian government. They have to take that responsibility for Justice to stand for the sixty-nine children who died of the sickness.
Mr. Kijera said, his child was diagnosed of having malaria with symptoms of fever while they were given medical prescriptions. “So, unfortunately, we got this medicine (the syrup), and after taking the medicine the body situation gets worsen, we then return the child to the hospital.”
“If the Gambia has good medical equipment, and medicines are given as it supposed to be, these medicines shouldn’t get here. Hence these medicines already entered the country and no other choice except to go and see the doctors if we get sick. If the hospitals don’t get the medicines the nurses prescribe you ought to buy from pharmacies which caused this disaster of bad medicines,” he angrily explained.
He added that they were admitted to the hospital for three (3) days and his child was not able to urinate throughout the period. “On a Saturday we were sent to the A+ Lab at Kanifing Hospital where the child had a kidney test, they confirmed that he had a kidney problem and refer us to EFSTH Banjul, and there another two days he was still not urinating.
Kijera who was talking on the King FM Radio Station said, “The Doctors at Banjul told him that they don’t have a machine to do dialysis for the children that was when I took my child to Dakar. The day we got there they did the dialysis for the child around 7:00 pm and before 10:00 pm he started urinating”.
He continued in his sorrowful narration that the doctors at a hospital in Dakar told him that it was already late for the child to be treated because the child had not been urinating for days it has caused an infection that affects the lungs. After one (1) week and four (4) days, the child died.
Now, Kijera said he wants justice but he is powerless and his only power is for the government to provide them justice. The 69 children that have died are not a small number of souls.