Dear Visitor,

From the bottom of my heart may I thank you for spending so much time at my web site and please be assured that your interest in my work is so very much appreciated. It is so humbling to realise that there are so many kind, warm hearted people out there who are so keen to get involved with the Appeals work.

This page allows me the ideal opportunity to set out the day to day activities of the Appeal and what its future ambitions are.

My main focus is always centred on raising the necessary funding to continue with the regular container shipments and purchase of essential life saving medical equipment, dressings and medications that are constantly required. The total of last years fund raising activities, £19,500.00 ($27,500.00) was spent in exactly this way.

However I constantly consider that if the two following very chilling facts were addressed then the Appeal would make a real difference to the lives of so many in Bansang.

Ten times as many children in the Gambia die before they are 28 days old, than in the UK.

One in four children in the Gambia DO NOT see their 5th birthday.

The improvements needed to attempt to deal with these dreadful facts are detailed below under the heading Ambitions. I fully realise that these improvements will cost many thousands of pounds. However the long term dual benefits of substantially improved life expectancy and dramatically reduced hospital costs will far outweigh the initial costs. Furthermore once implemented they will continue to deliver these benefits for the long term.

If you could find it in your heart to become a donor to the Bansang Hospital Appeal then you would be helping me to make that real difference to the lives of the people of Bansang Hospital, especially the children.

Please, please join me and become a friend of the Bansang Hospital and help me to turn my ambitions into life saving reality.

Donate now ~ Either passively or actively

Kind regards,

Anita Smith

Day to day activities of the Appeal

This is how the Appeal operates its day to day activities in order to continue offering the necessary support that the hospital and its patients constantly require.

Continue to explore all fund raising avenues to enable the regular shipment of containers to the hospital to continue. The Appeal has sent, since 1992, twenty five containers at an average cost of £1,750.00 ($2,600.00) per container.

Continue to raise the awareness, in the UK, of the Bansang Hospital Appeals work and the critical needs of the hospital. This awareness is achieved through regular slide show presentations to interested groups.

Continue to purchase vital drugs, medications and dressings to replenish the constantly under pressure pharmacy.

Continue to obtain redundant medical equipment from hospitals and medical clinics across the UK.

Continue to arrange for volunteers to work at the hospital. The staff at the hospital gain vital skills and knowledge from these visits and so enhance their own abilities.

With the help of just a few hundred small donations these following ambitions could be achieved very quickly indeed and a real difference could then be made to life in Bansang Hospital.

Ambitions

In close consultation with the hospital management board the following two areas have been identified as vital improvements that if implemented would significantly reduce the high mortality rate, especially amongst children.

Cross infection

Reduction of over crowding and multiple bed sharing on the wards, especially the children's ward, would eliminate the life threatening cross infection hazard that currently exists.

To build a fully equipped purpose built 80 bed children's ward with its own self contained general isolation area and separate tuberculosis isolation area. TB is highly infectious and it is essential that treatment for this condition should be carried out in a self contained fully equipped unit.

To build a fully equipped general isolation area and separate TB isolation area for adult patients away from the main ward area. Once again, as on the children's ward, cross infection amongst adult patients is a life threatening hazard that must be eliminated.

Further additional significant benefits of this improvement would be, simplified treatment, faster patient recovery rate and therefore enabling the nursing staff to be able to treat more patients more effectively.

Education

It is hard to believe that in today's advanced society there should be a community where poverty illnesses and educational ignorance can lead to one in four children not surviving until their fifth birthday.

Many of these patients arrive at the hospital with extremely complicated conditions that, if detected much earlier, could have been dealt with as straight forward outpatient cases. However in the majority of these late arrival cases it is to late and death is often the inevitable outcome.

The Appeal would like to introduce a mobile awareness scheme that would deliver, into the communities, an educational message that would address all personal health care matters.

It would be so much better if families were able to immediately recognise a condition, especially a life threatening one, and be aware of the correct course of action to take to deal with this condition.

Not only would this be a major life saving scheme it would have the added benefit of substantially reducing the demands on the hospitals resources.

The consequences of the existing educational ignorance amongst the population is graphically illustrated on the Photos page, section 2

The Hospital

There are so many urgently needed improvements, however I will just identify one more as being of high priority.

To install a lift system, to transport female patients, between the ground floor and the ward area on the second floor. Female cases currently, are stretchered from the operating theatre or accident and emergency department to their ward via a narrow steep flight of stairs. This can be a very stressful and nerve racking procedure for patients to endure.

If having read this page you feel that you would like to contribute to the Bansang Hospital Appeal please go the "Donate Now" page and explore the many ways in which you can donate.

Donate now ~ Either passively or actively

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