The Gambia Association of Resident Doctors (GARD) has agreed to resume providing emergency treatment and care for patients across the country. Doctors, in a statement released today, said they will resume limited medical services starting tomorrow Wednesday 28 March 2018 until a final agreement to amicably resolve their dispute with the Minister of Health is reached.
The doctors, according to the statement, have “unanimously decided to review their stance” to provide emergency services on Wednesday as a “show of good faith” after they have held series of dialogue with Vice President Fatoumata Tambajang, government officials, and other stakeholders. The Vice President, Ms. Tambajang, has assured the doctors that the government is “committed to reforms that are lacking in the health system,” the doctors stated in the press release. The press release stated that the doctors will continue to engage in dialogue with all “stakeholders to achieve a health system we all deserve and yearn for.”
On Thursday 22 March 2018, GARD posted a group photo of its members with the Vice President on its Facebook Page reporting that they held a meeting with the Vice President who “apologized [about] the remarks made by the minister on the latter’s and the government’s behalf.” On 23 March 2018, GARD posted a second message on its Facebook Page, purportedly taken from the Vice President’s Facebook Page acknowledging that she had held a meeting with GARD in which she stated that “as a leader one must be able to apologize for the greater good.” It’s not clear if the Vice President was referring to the Minister of Health, or if the doctors accepted the apology from the Vice President in lieu of an “acceptable apology” from the Minister of Health, Ms. Saffie Lowe-Ceesay.
Readers will recall that the doctors started their sit-down strike on 11 March 2018 after what they called the Minister of Health’s refusal to meet their demands in the ultimatum to withdraw her derogatory remarks, apologize for them and resign from office. The crisis began after the minister, on 28 February 2018, made a statement about young doctors for stealing drugs from the hospital to sell them in their privately-owned pharmacies. In announcing the sit-down strike, the doctors indicated that the statement made by the minister was the last straw that broke the camel’s back but that they had long-standing grievances of unsafe work environment, lack of equipment, tools and facilities to provide quality care for their patients which they alleged the ministry failed to address. In what the doctors referred to as Phase I of their sit-down strike, they stated that they would provide only emergency care and gave a twenty-four hours ultimatum for the minister to meet all their demands. When she did not comply with those demands, the doctors escalated their sit-down strike to Phase II in which they stopped providing all care to patients. The announcement today by the doctors is that they are going to provide the level of care they provided in Phase I of their sit-down strike, which they now called a gesture to show good faith in the negotiations. The Gambia Times could not confirm the terms of their negotiations with the authorities and whether the health minister’s resignation is still on the table. The Gambia Times hopes to obtain answers from Dr. Pa Amadou Sohna, the Public Relations Officers (PRO) of GARD, in an exclusive interview on The Grit Show on The Gambia Times Radio to be aired tomorrow at 1800 GMT, 2 PM EST, 11AM PST. Tune in on The Gambia Times Radio or Facebook Live for the broadcast of the interview.