By Binta Jaiteh
Kebba Manneh, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of FarafenniGeneral Hospital has explained that pregnant women are forced to share the same bed at the hospital due to lack of space.
The CEO of the hospital revealed this yesterday during the consideration stage of the hospital financial statements and activity reports presented before the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC) of the National Assembly.
“The wards are so congested that they cannot accommodate the patients, which has forced us to decide that the patients should share the same bed which is not ideal,” he disclosed
He said this warranted the board to come up with proposals to build new structures to address the challenges.
He outlined other challenges of the structure which include electrical, and plumbing fitting among other things he described as very critical though, the management has taken some remedial action to address them.
“There is ongoing maintenance that is done monthly to correct some of the taps that are leaking. The expansion issue is a challenge, too,” he added.
The CEO told the FPAC committee that they intended to build a new maternity complex because their maternity complex is very tight.
Lamin Suwareh, Board Chairman of FGH alluded to what the CEO has said about the structure noting that it is disheartening.
Batou Drammeh, Financial Officer of the hospital said the management didn’t have enough money to buy vehicles and also their drugs are in Banjul but still cannot pick them because of challenges of the hospital
Hon Allagie S Darboe, chairperson of the committee said, the committee considered the report of the hospital’s financial statements and reports as well as the activity report ranging from 2015 to 2021 and the activity report from 2015 to 2022.
“We went through the audit queries, and the accounts were prepared by the audit standard. We have cases of audit queries wherein some are resolved and few cases remain unresolved,” he stated.
He went on that the committee will make a report out of what has been considered and the subsequent reports to be provided will form the basis of the type of report to be presented to the plenary who will also consider the report to be presented for adoption