Close to 200 vulnerable people consulted free of charge in Bourha district Hospital by a CBC Health Services Mobile Clinic
Community Outreach Screening is a strategy used by the ” Building Resilience of Refugees, Internally
Displaced Persons and Host Communities, through Improved Access to Health, Education and Income-generating Activities” to reach out to the most vulnerable people found in hard-to-reach communities in the Far North Region of Cameroon by the CBC Health Services.
Bourha Subdivision is located at the border with Nigeria in the Mayo-Tsanaga division and is one of the most isolated and poverty-stricken localities in the Far North region of Cameroon. Small-scale agriculture and businesses are the main income-generating activities for the local population. The roads are barely passable, and the many hills make access to the area difficult. These factors prevent the people of Bourha from accessing quality health care most especially specialized services.
To alleviate the suffering of the Bourha communities, the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBC Health Services) undertook a trip to Bourha to carry out specialized screening. The trip was undertaken within the context of the project “Building Resilience of Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons and Host Communities, through Improved Access to Health, Education and Income-generating Activities” financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development through the Christian Blind Mission CBM. The screening was carried out by a powerful team of specialists from Meskine Baptist Hospital Maroua at the Bourha District Hospital. Dr. Philippe MIKO, Chief Medical Officer of Meskine Baptist Hospital Maroua and Clinical Supervisor of this advanced strategy, explains that “the aim is to bring the specialized services of Meskine Baptist Hospital Maroua to the populations of Mayo-Tsanaga, Mayo-Sava, and Logone et Chari thereby improving their access to quality health services and enabling them to have free consultations, detect any illnesses that require specialized medical attention for appropriate treatment”
During this first outing, 191 people benefited from free consultations in the following specialties: Ear, Nose, and Throat (Oto-Rhino-Laryngologie), Traumatology/Physiotherapy, and Ophthalmology. An initiative much appreciated by beneficiaries like Djessoua Amos, who testifies that “My child has enormous eye problems. But for lack of means, I’ve never taken him to the hospital for consultation. We were told that specialists are in Mokong or Guider and that’s several kilometers from here, and the roads are bad. But with this Mobile Clinic, I’ve been able to get him to see a specialist, and he’s now getting proper treatment”.
For the Chief of Health District Bourha Dr Jonas TIGA, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development BMZ and the Christian Blind Mission were right to initiate this Mobile Clinic, because the people of Bourha have numerous health conditions, but the technical platform of the District Hospital cannot guarantee them appropriate treatment, especially when it comes to specialized services.
For this year 2023, the project ” Building Resilience of Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons and Host Communities, through Improved Access to Health, Education and Income-generating Activities ” plans to organize 24 Mobile Clinics, for the benefit of approximately 10,000 vulnerable people, to be consulted in the three divisions of the Far North affected by the security crisis, namely Mayo-Tsanaga, Logone et Chari and Mayo-Sava.