Prof. Johanne Sundby started by introducing the speaker and former UiO MPhil doctoral candidate (2001), Mamady, a Gambian trained registered nurse-midwife. Along with various significant career achievements in public health, he has served in three different public hospitals as Director.
Mamday began his presentation with background information about the Farafenni APRC General Hospital, which is one of the seven public hospitals in The Gambia. The hospital is located more than 100 km from the main city with several designated clinical departments and a capacity of 250 beds. He reflected on the poor condition of the hospital before 2012, and the overall improvements for the patients and staff after several new measures were introduced. These introduced measures included a set of data collection tools called “monthly collection tools” highlighting the importance of data in public health, timely data collection and verification, as well as “quarterly data audits” to ascertain completeness and accuracy. They also started to input the hospital’s data into the national platform, use descriptive statistics to display quarterly service delivery statistics, initiate performance review mechanisms and publish annual reports. Farafenni APRC General Hospital’s annual reports from 2012-2014 can be found below.
Furthermore, they reviewed policies regarding essential medical supplies, maternity care services, and human resource management by implementing rules for better organization, data updating and more availability of resources for patients and staff, which further led to overall measurable improvements for the hospital. In his final remarks, Mamady concludes by re-stating the 4 key principals to successful hospital management: 1) Fairness and accountability 2) Performance review mechanism 3) Staff motivation and reward for good performance and 4) Resilience, pragmatism, and openness. One of his key messages included, “at the end of the day indications lead to access, that is why data collection is important.” At the end of the seminar, the crowd thanked Dr. Mamady for sharing his knowledge and reflections, and students took the opportunity to talk to the speaker while enjoying light refreshments.
