HGOPY: New impetus for maternal and child health

Appointed head ofYaoundé Gynaecological, Obstetric and Pediatric Hospital (HGOPY).In November 2024, Dr. CHE Kingsley SOH spent his first holiday season at the hospital and was able to see the strengths and weaknesses of the hospital. Faced with the challenges of maternal and child health, the new head of the premises presents his projects to improve patient reception, the quality of care and facilitate the payment of medical expenses.

From the outset, he promises to put an end to the practice of “imprisoned mothers”HGOPY.

Dr CHE Kingsley Soh, Director General of the Yaoundé Genico-Obstetric and Pediatric Hospital (HGOPY).

Mr. Director General, you were appointed on November 25 and installed on December 4. How did you experience the end-of-year holiday period within the health facility for which you are responsible?

Indeed, we have just had a festive period. But, before the festive period, I was installed on December 4, 2024. We had planning meetings. That is to say, we set up the on-call teams that were to work during this period in all 23 departments that HGOPY has. In this sense, starting with Christmas, we did not have many difficult cases. We had many more moderate cases. On December 25, I was here at the hospital myself. That day, we received 14 patients. And then, on January 1, 2025, I was still at the hospital. We had two cesarean sections, among which we had twins. They were our first babies of 2025. So, I was here to celebrate with the mothers. So, we had a normal delivery and two cesarean sections to end up with 4 babies. And then, in the Emergency Department, we had eight cases on January 1st. These were cases of malarial ace, hysterical syndrome, febrile gastroenteric. Once again, there were no severe cases. With the emergency team, we were able to manage all these cases. But, on January 1st too, we had 10 cases under observation. So, there were no major problems at HGOPY during these two holidays. So, I think we had a calm holiday period. Our on-call teams responded because that was also the objective of my visit to the hospital during these two days of celebration. These were unannounced visits and I found that all the staff was there. I was satisfied. I even tried to motivate some of the staff who were there doing the work.

A front view of the hospital.

Is the issue of mothers trapped within this health facility a project that is close to your heart for the year ahead?

Yes, of course! We started with a situation analysis. For us, it was a more or less scientific approach to identify the problems of HGOPY and to plan for 2025. We had four quality assessment teams that went down to all the departments. There was a team for the laboratory, a team for the pharmacy, a team for the prevention and control of infections in the hospital environment and now a team for the rest of the hospital. It was a quality improvement. It is true that the teams are in the process of preparing their report, but there has been feedback and we already have an idea of ​​the points to improve. This is why I went down this morning with the employees to the reception and emergency room. Because one of the problems was the poor reception of patients. Because we are seeing what we can do to improve this. Because, you agree with me that this is the entry point of the hospital.

A patient can come back because he came here and we did not receive him well. But also, we see that there are many rehabilitations to be done especially in the hospitalization rooms. We think that it is very important to make the individual hospitalization rooms comfortable and more pleasant. Because we have had many complaints. So, we intend to resolve the problems in the coming weeks. The painting of the buildings is no longer what we knew before. We are working with the Ministry of Health to see to what extent it can support us financially for an investment here in the hospital. In short, we are going to make our plan to resolve the problem based on the report that the evaluation teams will give us. Their report will be ready within a week and we will exploit it to its fair value. Now, for the insolvent, it is unfortunate. But, HGOPY is a hospital that takes care of women and children. That is to say, Gynecological, Obstetric and Pediatric care.

So, we are open to everyone. Even people who cannot pay, we will receive them. But, now, these are the mechanisms that we will put in place to see to what extent we will support these insolvents. It is true that we are in the process of formulating the plea. There are benefactors who come here to pay their bills. There are micro-finances but also in our budget, because we had our Board of Directors for the December session. It was on December 23, 2024. During this session, we provided our support for these cases of insolvency. It is a public hospital so we have set aside a small amount to help in this direction. Now, we are going to raise awareness a lot more because I have noticed that the bill is given at the end of the care. And, when it is substantial, patients cannot pay.

So, as the patients are integrated into our health facility, we will take stock of their invoice and we will communicate it to them as the situation progresses. I take this opportunity to thank the Minister of Public Health, Dr. Manaouda Malachie for having released 20 cases of insolvent patients. It was on December 4th when I was installed. I also thank Renaprov, because this structure had released eighteen other patients at the same time. But after December 4th, we had other cases of insolvency and there is an association called: “the sisters of gérico” which also came to release some patients. We sincerely thank all these people who come to our aid in relation to the care of insolvent patients in our health facility.

Minsanté exchanging with HGOPY patients.

The Director of HGOPY thanks the benefactors. By this gesture, does he mean that there will be no more mothers imprisoned in this health facility during his reign?

I think the problem is resources. We have noticed that we have many more patients who cannot pay. Because our hospitalization conditions are not pleasant, especially for people who can afford it. That is why we thought of making these conditions comfortable. That way, we will also have mothers who can pay. There are benefactors who are in fact our patients who are hospitalized and then, they notice that there are other mothers who cannot pay. So, they start helping these mothers. So, we will do everything to also encourage people who can afford it to use our services. The good news is that we are a center of excellence and we have one of the best specialists in Gynecology, Obstetrics and Pediatrics. So, in terms of human resources, we have quality human resources. Now, it is the working conditions of the staff and the hospitalization conditions that we must further improve so that users can appreciate and use our services.

Happy moms after their release from HGOPY.

What is the capacity of this health facility?

I will say from the outset that there are patients who come for outpatient consultation and those who come to be hospitalized. In this case, I am talking about women in full labor before giving birth and women who require surgery. However, our capacity in terms of beds is 226 beds. Up until now, the bed occupancy rate varies between 60 and 80%. So, we have this capacity. We have 23 departments within this health facility. We are in the process of expanding because at the moment, we are thinking about creating an internal medicine department because we already have a dermatologist and we have cardiologists who are currently vacant. areas. But, we are looking at how to expand our service to include other services that women and children need. There is also the equipment that we have purchasedincluding: the scanner, ultrasound devices, etc. In short, we are gradually improving our technical platform to be able to provide quality healthcare to our patients.

Mr. General Director, what will you do to ensure that patients arriving at HGOPY are not panicked by the cost of treatment?

First, we must say that we first welcome the patient before seeing if he has the means or not. So, I can reassure the population by saying that we are not going to chase anyone away. That is to say, everyone who wants to come to HGOPY is welcome. Afterwards, we will see the financial aspect. As you know, this hospital was inaugurated by the Head of State, His Excellency, Paul Biya in 2002. In his speech, the spirit of the Head of State is to have first-class hospitals to offer quality care to the most vulnerable populations. So, this means that everyone should be taken care of in a first-class hospital. It is not just the hospital of the rich. So, we must reassure the population that we are open. Of course, we will have cases of insolvents. But, we will always find strategies to take care of them.

What is your reaction to the decision to contract 9,944 health personnel announced by the Head of State on December 31 during his address to the Nation?

This is very good news because, here, we have a gap in human resources that is huge. We are currently making a plea to the Minister of Public Health to have many more staff. But, we know that even at his level, he does not have enough. So, this decision is very good news for the Health sector. and we are counting a lot on these personnel who will be recruited. We know that there are many doctors, many nurses and many laboratory technicians who are outside despite their training. I think that this is an opportunity that has been offered to Cameroonians. So, we as a public hospital establishment, we are waiting for the results of this recruitment that we expect to see in the coming months. You see, medicine is a noble profession. R Recruitment by the state or not, training in this area is something to be encouraged. Young people need to be trained in medicine, nursing, etc. to save the lives of the population. Only God can pay for health personnel.

Perhaps a wish for your colleagues for the new year…

I wish my colleagues a happy and prosperous New Year 2025. I encourage them every day to work harder. They will be motivated in this health facility. During the Board of Directors, we reviewed the system for calculating quotas. So, I promised my colleagues that we will earn more by working harder.

Remarks transcribed by Junior NTEPPE KASSI