By: Nyima Sillah
Hassan Martin, a Gambian human rights lawyer has said the demise of the 69 children who died of Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) is a National crisis.
In a telephone call interview with Mr. Martins over the weekend, he said “The nation is in crisis, the health sector is in crisis, and the Governance is not helping us with a lot of stability because we have observed that with the 69 babies that lost their lives.”
He said the statistics are very concerning statistic, saying the issue was explained and it was found out that the imported syrups in The Gambia led to the issues of these Children having AKI which caused their death.
“All of this shows a lack of organization. We have disorganization in us and we keep repeating this. The Gambia is much disorganized, especially in governance. Our referral hospitals are not functioning at full capacity and there is a lot of poor administration, nothing is regulated, he enunciated.
And he continued that “with the number of children that died, it is unacceptable for them to sit down there trying to spin us with an excuse. You cannot spin us or sugar-quote us on what’s happening today. As for me, it is untenable for a minister in this current time to say that he has to hang on to his position,” he added.
According to him, another surprising thing is that the WHO shows the figures how this happened, how it was imported and the structures or mechanisms like the MCA should all go into this to make sure they know the type of medicines that were imported.
He went on to say “It is a concern to know that over 3 months period Since July, medicine has been imported without any medical inspection. Where it came from they said an Indian Company which we didn’t know their background. We didn’t search under a government that did not find out, especially within the health sector they have more focus on that.
“When I first saw the news I was shocked, I didn’t believe it at first I thought it was just copied somewhere. Adding that what was more surprising was when I saw the figures produced by the WHO I know that this stands to be credible on records,” he exclaimed.