The Chief Medical Officer of the Bambili Medicalized Health Centre, Dr Ashu Chaline Ashu Agbor has expressed gratitude to medical authorities of the state for sending two medical doctors to her centre.

Bambili is one of the fastest growing towns in Mezam Division, North West Region of Cameroon. It has a student population of at least 15,000 as it harbours one of Cameroon’s two Anglo-saxon universities plus indigenes and other residents in the area.

The lone health service in Bambili with not more than 50 bed capacity has been functioning since 2019 with a single medical doctor who occupies an administrative function. Dr Ashu Chaline is the Chief Medical Officer, CMO. She is resident over 22km from her place of work.

Coupled with routine administrative works, she begins work from 8am to 6pm daily and would not come to work on lockdown or ghost town days given that movements become restricted. Her clients who are mostly students are administered treatment virtually or referred to other health facilities the day she can’t make it to work.

The recruitment of two medical doctors by the Minister of Public Health is not just a huge relieve to her but also her clients. ‘‘This year we’ve had a large turnout of patients because the patients know that their doctors are available…they will always come because they trust the doctors’’, Dr Ashu told thehumanitarianwatch.

The success stories are already on record with close to 100 patients registered already this February alone as opposed to less than 100 patients registered per month the previous years.

To boost the activities of this health facility, the Mayor of Tubah, Tanjong Martin has been supportive to its functioning; has recruited community health workers to assist Centre staff.

To ensure rapid healing of patients, Mayor Tanjong stopped farming around the health unit, planted fruit trees and flowers to beautify the environment, give room for clean air. Thanks to the Tubah Council, Dr Ashu is glad the health centre now has regular flow of water which was hitherto a rare one for them.

The success stories notwithstanding, are some challenges faced by this community facility of Bambili. The dust resulting from ongoing road construction works in Bambili, the CMO laments it even re-infects patients after treatment. ‘‘We need more nurses. Sometimes we have just one nurse on night shifts covering the whole centre. You never can tell, any emergency can come in and a single nurse would not do the work’’, Dr Ashu added.