Beryl Thyer

Memorial Africa Trust

Babies: Now ~ What can the Trust do?

This page is devoted to explaining the general child health situation in Cameroon, the work that has been achieved, prior to the Beryl Thyer Memorial Africa Trust being formed.

The Present Situation

There are about 2.4 million under-5s in the NW Province.

The under-5 mortality rate is 149 (2004)

The under-5 mortality rate was 139 in1990; things are getting worse!

The infant mortality rate (under 1 yr) is 87

The neonatal mortality rate (under 28 days) is 37

The under-5 mortality Rank for Cameroon is 25. The lower the number, the worse the situation.

Cameroon is listed as one of the 19 countries in the 'Crisis' category

Of the worst 7 countries in the world (Ranks 1 - 7), all are in sub-Saharan Africa except for Afghanistan.

The best are China (Rank 93), Phillipines (Rank 88)

The causes of the deaths in Cameroonian children are shared almost equally between

Neonatal causes: birth asphyxia and infections

Diarrhoeal diseases

Pneumonia

Malaria

HIV/AIDS and Measles play a small part; but HIV/AIDS has overtaken measles in its prevalence. The coverage of childhood immunizations in Cameroon is between 60 - 70 %; not good

Exclusive breastfeeding is at about 30%: not good

Skilled attendant at birth is available to only about 60% of pregnant women: not good

Clean drinking water is only available to about 60% of the population: not good

Proper sanitation is only available to about 50% of the population: not good

An interesting and informative statistic as used by the Countdown to 2015 workers in child survival, is to consider the equity of health interventions. They recorded for Cameroon that:

Of the least poor people, 70% of the children were receiving 6 or more basic survival interventions

Of poorest people, 14% of the children were receiving 6 or more basic survival interventions.

Thus even within the country there is a discrepancy of coverage between the informed better-off people, and the uninformed poor.

Poverty causes ill health and health care is expensive everywhere in the world.

Poor people sell personal property to pay hospital bills.

Thirty percent of Cameroonians live on less than 1$US per day.

Health insurance does not exist; if it did it would be unaffordable

Poor people go without food in order to pay health care bills.

This then is the backdrop and baseline from which our Trust operates.

Most of the statistical information on this site is contemporary, and comes from the Report from the Countdown to 2015 conference referred to.

I cannot overemphasize the value of The Lancet in this Child Survival work. I therefore make no apology for offering visitors to this site, the Comment written by the Editor, Richard Horton.

'Newborn babies seem to have fallen between the cracks of safe motherhood programmes on one side, and child survival initiatives on the other…. In sub-Saharan Africa some countries have seen reversals that are both unusual and disturbing' ~ Source: The World Health Report; WHO 2005

What has been achieved in the years before the Trust was formed?

The teaching and training of student nurses, student midwives, established nurses and midwives, and medical staff in Provincial Hospital Bamenda, Cameroon, Banso Baptist Hospital, Kumbo, Cameroon, Mbingo Baptist Hospital, Mbingo, Cameroon, and Bansang Government Hospital, Bansang, The Gambia.


Student nurse practising resuscitation technique on a manikin	Real life resuscitation in Children's ward

The provision to the above hospitals of a written course-book on the subject of Neonatal Care as taught by the Resuscitation Council, UK.

The provision to all the above hospitals of recent medical articles relating to neonatal care, which will also compliment the training courses given.

The supply of low-tech radiant heaters designed by Dr McCormick, to all the above hospitals.


Low-tech radiant heater; cost about £100	High-tech radiant heater; cost about £10 000
For for the Lancet website article describing Naomi Wright's work with the above apparatus in The Gambia in 2005 click here

The supply of basic apparatus necessary to the resuscitation of the newborn; laryngoscopes with neonatal blades; neonatal bag-and-masks; Guedel airways; pulse oximeters.

The provision of Laerdal manikins for the demonstration of resuscitation techniques.

The establishment of a breast milk bank at Provincial Hospital, Bamenda.


Donated breastmilk ready to go to the Laboratory for testing	Pasteurised donor breastmilk in the Nursery fridge	Donated breastmilk being fed to a premature baby

Read my study on establishing a breast milk bank

in a Cameroonian hospital click here

The provision of Exchange Transfusion apparatus to two of the hospitals.

The Future Aims of the Trust

The Beryl Thyer Memorial Africa Trust will pay for food and clothes for those in obvious need.

We will continue to provide instruction, teaching and training in care of the healthy and sick newborn as above.

We will seek opportunities for enabling local senior staff - doctors and midwives - to teach and train their own juniors in future, whilst making ourselves available on an intermittent basis, to monitor progress, re-assess needs, provide up-dated information, discuss problems, and give encouragement and support.

We will continue to stress the widely accepted belief that early and exclusive breastfeeding is a vital part of infant survival.

We will seek to establish a Breastmilk Bank at both hospitals with a view to enabling the minority of mothers who cannot breastfeed their babies to obtain donor breastmilk for their newborn.

We will support the recently established Infection Control Nurses at the hospitals.

We will continue to supply medical books and journals relating to care of the newborn.

We will continue to stress the need for immediate and close contact between the mother and her newborn, knowing that this technique is often not used in sub-Saharan Africa, and that it goes hand in hand with early breastfeeding.


Kangaroo Mother Care (skin to skin)	Kangaroo Mother Care	Teaching Neonatal care to students

We will address the need for tetanus toxoid for the newborn knowing the danger in sub-Saharan Africa of neonatal tetanus.

We will address the need for vitamin K at birth for all babies, and especially those of low birth weight.

We will monitor the use of Nevirapine for the mothers in labour who are HIV positive, and for their newborn.

We will investigate the use of steroids for mothers in premature labour, with a view to reducing the risk if the Respiratory Distress Syndrome in the newborn.

We will continue to advise on the proper use of appropriate antibiotics for the newborn with infection.

We will listen to the requests for necessary affordable equipment for the benefit of the newborn; e.g. pulse oximeters, glucometers, umbilical catheters, bag and masks, etc., and seek to provide these items.

We will listen to requests for drugs, and where appropriate and affordable, will seek to purchase them.

We will start to encourage the principles of care of the newborn to community health centres, their professionals, and to impart our knowledge to the families themselves; this being inline with the precepts of the Countdown to 2015 Programme.

o0o

Thought for the day:

'Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it'.

Proverbs ch 2 v 27

(Babies: Now)

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Beryl Thyer Memorial Africa Trust, a UK registered charity ~ 1112603