Health Centre | Sibanor Clinic

A brief history of ECG Sibanor Health Centre

Medical mission work at Sibanor commenced in the 1960’s when a team of midwives from the mission organisation WEC established a small mission hospital with basic healthcare and maternity facilities. For many years it was the only source of medical care for the entire population of the Foni area in which Sibanor is located. The facilities at the health centre were expanded over time with more missionary volunteers – doctors and nurses, coming to work alongside the predominantly Gambian nursing team.

WEC’s mission is to reach what is termed ‘unreached people groups’ with the Gospel and several of the tribal groups served by Sibanor Health Centre fell into this category, with no Bible available in their tribal language and no Christian witness in their locality.

The Health Centre provided the opportunity to demonstrate the love of Jesus to local people (through excellent and compassionate health care), to give them the opportunity to witness the transformed lifestyle of Christian volunteers working amongst them, and to give them the opportunity to hear the good news about salvation through Jesus Christ.

In 2003 the Gambian Health Authority opened a hospital at Bwiam, which is about 15km further up-river than ECG Sibanor. This well-resourced medical facility was able to deal with more complex cases than Sibanor and gradually Sibanor evolved into a centre dealing with more minor illnesses. Nevertheless the patient workload at Sibanor is still significant and it still plays a major role in the provision of health care to the Foni’s.

In 2017 WEC decided that it should prioritise its human resources and finance in other areas and gave notice of the intent to close the Health Centre. The Evangelical Church of The Gambia (ECG) felt strongly that the mission work of the Health Centre was not yet finished, and an agreement was made to transfer the centre from WEC to ECG. Since 2018 the Centre has been under Gambian management and WEC has moved to a support role, providing some ongoing finance support (mainly from retired ex-volunteer doctors and nurses) and a steady stream of short and long term volunteers.

Today the Health Centre employs approximately 40 people in a range of medical and support roles and sees over 20,000 patients a year. It has outpatient consulting rooms, ward accommodation for inpatients comprising 30 beds, a dedicated HIV centre and a newly-opened nursing school.

ECG Sibanor Health Centre Vision

To show the compassion of Jesus to our patients through provision of high quality affordable health care, and to see local people become followers of Jesus through hearing, understanding, and receiving the Gospel.

ECG Sibanor Health Centre Mission

To provide good quality affordable medical services that will meet the physical, mental, and spiritual needs of the sick and needy, and demonstrate God’s love and compassion through words and actions.

To build relationship and trust with the local people so that in addition to provision of medical care, they are open to hearing the Gospel.

To have a distinctively Christian approach to managing the Health Centre, with prayer as a priority and with staff members helped to develop their skills and encouraged to achieve high levels of quality.

ECG Sibanor current objectives

The Health Centre has seven primary objectives, which are relevant for

the situation that exists today:

To give all patients high quality acute and chronic health care, including maternal care, achieving high levels of successful outcomes.
To provide services that are seen to be reasonably priced by the local people, so that they come for treatment early.
To carry out weekly Outreach visits to nearby villages to identify people who have asymptomatic hypertension and diabetes.
To partner well with government health services, including providing timely statistical information on patient numbers and reasons for attendance.
To encourage and actively promote regular attendance at the Health Centre for all patients for whom concordance with a long term treatment plan is critical for their well-being.
To maintain high levels of capability, motivation and commitment amongst the Health Centre staff.
To take every opportunity to demonstrate the love of God and to testify to the saving grace of Jesus with patients, with staff members, and in the local community.