Eight hundred deliveries per year in conditions that comply with health standards. This is the ambitious objective of the new maternity ward inaugurated last week in the department of Mayo-Tsanaga, in the far north of Cameroon.
The new structure, which is part of the “Centre Rohan-Chabot de Ziling” integrated health centre, was donated by the Order of Malta (at a construction cost of 130 million Cameroonian francs, or around 200,000 euros) and includes a delivery room, a two-bed observation room, a three-bed inpatient room, a treatment room, an ultrasound room, a duty room, a listening room, a laundry room and a block of four toilets. A medical ambulance is also available for any emergency transfer to medical structures for intensive care.
After the official inauguration on July 11, two little girls were born, thus inaugurating in practice the new maternity ward. One of them, premature, was able to be transferred to the district hospital thanks to the new ambulance provided expressly for cases like this.
This northern region of Cameroon has the highest birth rate in the country, up to 15 births per family unit, which explains the need for an obstetrics and gynecology structure that reduces the practice of home deliveries.
The inauguration ceremony took place in the presence of the Ambassador of the Order of Malta in Cameroon, Jean Christophe Heidsieck, the local administrative and religious authorities and the Minister of Public Health, Manaouda Malachie. It was an opportunity to reaffirm the mutual gratitude and friendship between the Order of Malta and Cameroon. “The inauguration of this maternity ward, desired by the public authorities and carried out with the essential help of the Order of Malta in Cameroon, improves, both qualitatively and quantitatively, the technical support platform for pregnant women in particular, but in in the field of population health in the department of Mayo-Tsanaga and in the department of Mokolo in particular”. In the new service work a majority of nursing sisters, now accompanied by four doctors made available by the Cameroonian government, through the Ministry of Public Health.
The structure opened its doors in 1972, on the initiative of the Order of Malta, as a leper colony, was then transformed into a dispensary, then into a rehabilitation center, and finally into a nutritional center for young children from underprivileged families.
The Order of Malta is committed alongside the Cameroonian public health system in the fight against cholera as well.
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