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>From: Momodou Camara <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: FWD:Campama Crisis "Resolved"
>Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 14:44:50 -0500
>
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>Sender:       The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
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>Poster:       Momodou Camara <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject:      FWD:Campama Crisis "Resolved"
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Campama Crisis "Resolved"
>
>The Independent (Banjul)
>NEWS
>July 16, 2004
>Posted to the web July 16, 2004
>Banjul
>
>The hydra-headed crisis caused by a chronic shortage of drugs for patients
>at the Campama Psychiatric home has been "promptly" resolved, culminating
>in the re-admittance of mental cases again, according to the Royal Victoria
>Teaching Hospital's Public Relations Officer.
>
>Baboucarr Ngum told The Independent Wednesday, that the drug shortage
>crisis, which had so seriously hamstrung operations at the country's only
>mental home, is now a thing of the past as the arrival of new drugs are
>distributed.
>
>Ngum said the problem of the psychiatric home has been one of congestion,
>as staff at the centre literally struggled to come to terms with the
>inherent problems in balancing the dearth in drugs and the paucity of staff
>to deal with inmates, some of whom were released to mainstream society in a
>desperate bid to decongest the hitherto crowded mental home. According to
>the PRO, several consignments of drugs including modecate had arrived in
>the country, as details of the Campama crisis were being made public
>knowledge. "It is true that we have been encountering problems in dealing
>with the drug shortage, but the situation has assumed normalcy. It should
>also be borne in mind that the drugs are very expensive and can only be
>procured from the UK and other European countries. What is more, the number
>of patients we routinely have to deal with has been swelling without let
>and this had brought its own problem revolving around our ability to cope
>with the situation" Ngum expostulated.
>
>The RVTH official sought to calm the affrighted nerves of relatives of
>people with mental cases, by making reassuring pronouncements about the
>readiness of the RVTH to deal with recurrent problems about drugs, which
>can only be procured from far away Europe and the administrative
>bottlenecks caused by the inadequacies of a skeletal Campama staff, who
>have been at their wit's end to deal with the crisis.
>
>"We are now restructuring the Campama operation scheme to make it more
>responsive to the growing demand for the attention of mental cases.
>
>There is no grain of truth in the assertion that the RVTH do not care about
>what happens at the Campama. What is true is that we as Gambians and as
>human beings are very passionate about conditions at the psychiatric home.
>If that will serve to show how sincerely we take the Campama issue I must
>tell The Independent the clockwork frequency and unfailing regularity of my
>visits there to keep track of the situation there' he added.
>
>Campama Psychiatry's dearth of medicinal drugs to treat its mentally
>deranged patients reached crisis point recently with violent inmates, being
>allowed to leave the country's only mental home, which was at its wits' end
>in dealing with the chronic shortage.
>
>Reports had alluded to the fact that the overwhelming majority of inmates
>with varying degrees of mental imbalance have been released back to the
>community as Campama grapples with the chronically acute shortage of drugs
>to calm violent fits. Reasons ascribed for freeing the inmates included the
>chronic lack of medicines and what close relatives of some of the inmates
>called the skeletal staff who have been "mentally and physically
>overstretched" to look after over a hundred patients.
>
>According to these reports only a handful of inmates were left in the
>mental home, whose personnel recently made plaintive calls to the Royal
>Victoria Teaching Hospital for the provision of drugs to treat its
>neglected inmates. Due to the frequency of violence among inmates at
>Campama, the demand for nerve-calming drugs has been of permanent
>significance.
>
>"We understand and accept these reasons for these inmates being let out,
>but imagine the danger these sick people pose to the society, women and
>children especially. Many of these runaway Campama inmates can be seen
>roaming our markets and other public places. Are we to sit and wait for
>another disaster like the one which happened in Bakau, where two people
>were killed by a mentally deranged man just months ago" a concerned
>relative of one Campama inmate who wished to remain anonymous was quoted as
>lamenting.
>
>According to him, his brother who was mentally imbalanced had escaped from
>the Campama Psychiatric home months ago and was rehabilitated by his
>family, since at the time he had not shown any propensity for violence and
>was not therefore an apparent threat to anyone.
>
>"However, recently he has been quite violent and dangerous even for his own
>relatives. He is capable of doing harm and we took him back to Campama for
>him to be readmitted. To our utter surprise, we were told that the only
>mental home in the country no longer takes in patients. It left us
>completely flabbergasted," he explained, lamentably adding; "many other
>mentally disturbed patients have been allowed to leave the mental home with
>serious risks to society. Something must be done about it".
>
>He said the only positive response by the Department of State for Health
>should be the requisitioning of medical materials and medicines, which
>would see patients who have been allowed to rejoin society but still with
>mental deficiencies to be readmitted at the mental home.
>
>This development comes days after The Independent reported what it called
>the "cataclysmic" level to which the acute shortage of drugs to treat
>patients at the Campama hospital has reached. This dreary situation had
>prompted the psychiatric centre to stop admitting patients with advanced
>stages of mental illnesses as the RVTH allegedly failed to respond
>positively. Overwhelmed by the situation senior hospital staff thought the
>only prudent measure at their disposal was to suspend the admittance of
>more patients at the centre in the interim as they struggle to deal with
>the dearth in drugs, which according to sources the Royal Victoria Teaching
>Hospital is not in a position to provide.
>
>Sources claimed that the decision not to admit patients was effected since
>May when the situation aggravated.
>
>A senior official at the psychiatric centre who wished to remain anonymous
>told The Independent that they had written to the RVTH management,
>communicating to them their concerns over the chronic lack of drugs there.
>He said the dispatch had conveyed their request for the teaching hospital
>to supply the psychiatric centre with drugs to deal with mental cases in
>the short term. The conditions in Campama are getting worse every day, they
>added.
>
>"A lot of patients are still being brought in although we are at pains to
>let the world know that little or no drugs are available to treat them, and
>we are facing problems to deal with them" he had added. He also accused the
>RVTH of being negligent about conditions at the Campama, with its
>management team hardly even making routine inspections of the psychiatric
>centre, the only mental home in the country. "This can only amount to the
>fact that the RVTH does not care about what happens at the Campama" he
>protested.
>
>Another anonymous Campama staff also decried the state of the food being
>made available to inmates, which he described as "very poor and unhygienic
>diet". He said as a result patients hardly eat. The anonymous official
>further revealed that even the beds of the hospital were full of bed bugs,
>which makes it difficult for inmates to sleep.
>
>"When we informed the RVTH management about these things they were never in
>the habit of responding positively" he claimed, adding that the doors in
>the hospital rooms are not in good shape, making it easy for people with
>mental problems to slip out without the knowledge of the hospital
>staff. "Two inmates were killed in motor traffic after they escaped from
>the compound this way" he explained.
>
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>
>Copyright =A9 2004 The Independent. All rights reserved. Distributed by
>AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------=
>
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