2 Students At St. Don Bosco Special School Die Over Transport

Information  gathered, indicates that two students of St. Don Bosco Special School at Loho in the
Nadowli-Kaleo District of the Upper West Region have met their untimely death.

This follows a lack of transportation to convey them to the community hospital when they felt sick.

The school currently has no means of transportation, making it difficult for students at the school to access medical care when necessary.

The school also lacks the accommodation for the teachers who are put in charge of the students as housemothers, making supervision of the children difficult.

The headmistress of the school, Veronica Dong, who expressed worries about the situation said “The children have various conditions, they have unique problems with unique solutions. For instance, last term we lost two children due to this lack of transport to send them to the nearest hospital for treatment in case the need arises”.

According to her, “Some are epileptic, when the seizure comes and we can control it, fine. Some, we need to carry them to the nearest health center for treatment. The first child that died happened to be a market day for one of the villages around. Mostly, we rely on this yellow Praghiya. That day, we stood by the roadside for a very long time we couldn’t get any of them to convey the girl to the hospital. Before we moved her there, it was too late, so means of transport is one of our biggest challenges”.

She complained further that “No teacher stays in the yard here. We don’t have any accommodation for teachers. Even the house mothers are five but all of them cannot come on duty due to lack of accommodation so two come at a time”.

She added that “And the teachers too, none of us stay around so when we close like this we all go to our various homes. So when there’s a case the house mothers cannot handle, they have to call us to travel from our homes to solve the problem so, we will be grateful if we could get accommodation in the yard, to enable us to try and monitor and supervise what happens to the children after the normal class hours.”

She further noted that the vocational department of the school lacks enough raw materials to produce in large quantities to sell due to la ack of funds.

She, therefore, appealed to individuals willing to help the school revamp the vocational class to come to their aid.

The school, which was established in 2000 as a unit under the Wa School for the Deaf currently has a population of 148 special students.