History of Health in The Gambia (1887-1980)

The first Public Health Ordinance for The Gambia was passed in 1887.  A board comprising ten members was established to monitor public health but in practice the Governor retained control of health matters, according to Hibarr NRS.

By 1950 there were eight doctors in The Gambia, although only one doctor was stationed in the protectorate, where majority of Gambians lived, in 1951. Also, some of these doctors were specially meant to cure Whites only. In the early 1950s Gambian newspapers frequently exposed cases of White doctors’ alleged racism against Gambian patients at Bansang and RV hospitals. One doctor Gordon was taken to task by journalist Findain Dailey for parading Gambian hernia patients in the open at Bansang hospital. Another dentist was exposed in the Bathurst press for slapping patients who complained of pain when their teeth were being removed.

 The Gambia Government abolished charges for health care in that year with the exception of first and second class wards in hospitals.  Dr. S.H.O Jones become the first Gambia to be appointed Director of Medical Services in August 1952, in addition to these responsibilities Jones was appointed as an official member of both the Executive and the Legislative Council, The Victoria Hospital, which had been renovated, reopened in June 1953 to complement a health service, which then included Bansang Hospital (opened in 1938), nineteen health centres, twenty-two sub dispensaries and eighteen sanitary stations.  Staff in the Medical Department in 1954/5 included the Director of Medical Services, a Medical officer of Health, seven medical officers and one dental surgeon.
The ministry of Health and Labour was established in 1961. 

The Ministry was an addition to, rather than a replacement for, the Medical and Health Department.  A year later responsibilities for labour was transferred to the ministry of Labour and Social Welfare (qv).  The medical and health department comprised a correspondence section (birth/deaths registration, ministerial and department files) in 1964 together with an accounts section, the hospital office and the medical store.  A committee set up in that year by the Director of Medical Services, John Mahoney, recommended a reorganisation of the department and in September 1964 there were change in terms of staffing and the organization of offices.

The development programme of 1964 envisaged an endemic disease unit, mass inoculations, a nursing training school and the upgrading of village dispensaries to rural health centres.  These recommendations were supported by he McKenzie report, published in 1965, which also urged the full integration of the Medical and Health department with the ministry.  Despite this, the department continued to be separate from the ministry, which was from 1966/7, the ministry of Education, Health an Social Welfare (and successively the ministry of Health and Labour, the ministry of Health, Labour and Social Welfare and from 1986/7 the Ministry of Health, the Environment and Social Welfare.

The administrative distinction between the ministry and the Medical and Health department continued in the 1980s.  In ministry was divided into the Minister’s Office Unit.  The Medical and Health headquarters in that year comprised the Directorate, the Maintenance Unit, the World Health Organisation service strengthening programme, the Health Unit and the Revolving Fund.