Dr. Mambou Maka Albert Gets the Wheels of ABO Health District Turning

By James Achanyi Fontem, camlinknews

The wheels of ABO Health District started turning in Souza on the 30th September 2019 as Dr. Mambou Maka Albert presided over the first working session for having contact with heads of the five active public health and community sectors. In an opening address, Dr. Mambou presented himself as a cordial and open, but very strict person ready to work with all staff in his jurisdiction within the context of good governance and straight-forwardness. He emphasized that he is against people who gossip about others. After presenting his biography, participants at the meeting listened to guide lines on how the health district which has remained stagnant since its creation could move forward on a more positive path with the contribution of all heads of the health sector and communities put together in the interest of the entire population of ABO district. In frank talk, he said the health sector challenges will be solved with the contribution of all and not him alone or particular individuals. Before drawing the road map of the health district, he gave all the heads of the health areas and community representatives or delegates to present themselves with brief highlights of their respective activities. This included how they were elected within the different health communities He learnt about the distances linking them to the health district office at Souza and the difficulties encountered by them so far. He investigated on the activities of the health area community committees (COSA) before announcing the circular letter from the hierarchy requesting that health dialogue committees should be revamped in the month of October 2019 which end the current mandate. ABO district has six health areas, but only five have health centres catering for the well being of the populations. The activities in the Nono health area are almost non-existent due to the nature of topography. During the meeting, Dr. Mamboulearnt that the population of Non health area are very mobile and most of its traditional leaders live in Douala instead of in the health are because of flood during the rainy season. Most of the territory is off shore with many small islands. According to information gathered during the meeting, only infant immunization campaigns have been effective in Nono health area but Impregnated mosquito net distribution campaigns failed in Nono due to inaccessibility to the population that was targeted as beneficiariies.

In almost all health areas of ABO District, community health committees (COSA) exist, but are non-functional because meetings do not hold regularly. It is hoped that the diagnosis made by Dr Mambou will pave a way forward for constructing a viable road map to ameliorate and re-activate activities with better communication between the public health sector , the community health committees and the beneficiary populations of ABO Health District. In a concluding remark, Dr. Mambou expressed his thanks and gratitude by the way he was welcome during the recent handing over ceremony at Grand Souza Health Centre. He appreciated the heavy turn out during the ceremony by all stake holders in his area of jurisdiction.