By Mariam Williams
The Premier Group Foundation Trust (TPGFT), a non-profit philanthropist body with focus on charitable and medical endeavours, had recently offered free mediccal services to over 600 people from Choya village and its surroundings.
The laudable humanitarian event was held at Choya village in Niamina West of the Central River Region of The Gambia.
The initiative was part of TPGFT’s programme of activities, which include conducting health outreach, every four months, to the less-privileged people living in the hard-to-reach communities, in the rural areas.
The health outreach, as Mansa Banko Online gathered, is usually an educational and interactive day-long event with the aim to promote health, educate, empower and inspire the people in all aspects of health, with special emphasis on hypertension and diabetes.
Hinging on the theme, “Healthcare for all; Roll-back Non-Communicable Diseases”, the outreach outpatient Clinic was said to have been spearheaded by the Foundation’s young university trained nurses, student nurses, doctors, teachers and businessmen, among others.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), who doubles as the founder of TPGFT, Mr. Sankung Minteh, explained the purpose of the Foundation. He intimated that they are contributing their quarter to national development as youths of the country, since healthcare is key and fundamental to human beings, and that not everyone could easily access it, in their various communities.
Minteh informed the gathering that their next outreach activity would be held in the Upper River Region (URR), because their plan is to cover all the regions in The Gambia.
According to him, they {the foundation members} are the ones funding the outreach activities through their monthly contributions.
Reason: Because they are young individuals who recognize the need to contribute, in their own way, towards the national development of this country. With a monthly contribution, CEO Minteh indicated that it takes them four months to prepare for one outreach. But at the end of the day, they did contribute some amount to see to it that this activity goes on successfully.
The TPGFT chief revealed that he personally contributed D40,000 or more, in order to help the less-privileged people in the rural Gambia to get access to medical care and medications-free of charge.
Minteh said outreach is very important to them as an association, reasoning that hypertension and diabetes are really affecting many people in most of the communities they went to, and “is a killer disease”.
Mr. Gallajo Jallow,representing the District Chief at the event, underscored the importance of that outreach actvity in their community, saying it could not be over-emphasized.
The Niamina West chief’s representative informed the visitors that this was the first time they were having support in the area. He pointed out that access to healthcare services in their community “is really difficult and expensive”.
Jallow, therefore, thanked members of The Premier Group Foundation Trust for the initiative, while assuring the foundation that their {villagers’} doors are always open to receive them, any time, in Choya.
Jankey Baba, a native of Sambang kunda, who also benefitted from the Foundation’s medical largesse, expressed delights over the treatment. She described that outreach as very key to not only them, but the entire Niamina West District.
The doctor of the Association, Dr. David Demba was impressed with the number of people who came out for screening, and to know their health status. Majority of those seen, as Dr. Demba stated, are found with some other illness, disclosing that most of the diseases they were found to have, are non-communicable, and other communicable diseases.
As a medical personnel, he said that outreach is very important to him because most of the people in the rural communities are not financially strong.
Dr. Demba suggested that as medical personnel, sometimes they should not expect people to come to them, but instead, they should try to go and meet the people in their various communities. He saw it as a priority for medical practitioners like him, to meet people, and not for people “to meet us always”. Mr. Alhagie Alamu also spoke at the event.
