«…I intend to instruct the government to provide provincial hospitals, that do not yet have any with, dialysis equipment and scanners to relieve patients who are obliged to undertake long and tiresome journeys...” President Paul Biya said on December 31, 2007, while addressing the nation.

These words have been matched with action, hence the provision of medical care and services and extension to regional hospitals, upgrading of the technical level, especially through the procurement of scanners and haemodialysis and mammography equipment. The year 2011 was therefore the peak of the implementation of the Head of State’s instruction with the putting in place of the Ebolowa and Bertoua Imaging centres. The Garoua, Bamenda and Buea haemodialysis centres already operational have also come to decongest the Yaounde and Douala centres which pulled crowds in the past.

Its importance can therefore not be underestimated. No more cases of average families from far and wide stranded in the corridors of the Yaounde and Douala dialysis centres for want of help. No more cry of the lack of resources to get healed as the State has subsidised the sector. “The State pays FCFA 10,100 while the patient pays only FCFA 5000 for each dialysis session,” said Sylvie Akam, member of the Steering Committee for implanting dialysis centres in the Ministry of Public Health. “The feedback we receive on the project and its impact on the ground is appalling,” she said, adding that patients are forever grateful for the programme.

While waiting for the Ngaoundere and Bafoussam haemodialysis centres, under construction, to be completed, the Maroua and Buea regional hospitals have been earmarked for imagery centres. Kidney patients and those suffering from fistula are gradually experiencing a sigh of relief due to the mass implantation of dialysis centres in the country.