Africa-Press – Cape verde. The Cape Verde Fishing Shipowners’ Association (Apesc) intends to use the 850 thousand from the Community Guarantee Award to purchase two decompression chambers to help treat 52 fishermen who were victims of diving sickness.
At the trophy reception ceremony, which took place this Thursday at the Municipal Library, in São Vicente, the president of Apesc, Susano Vicente, guaranteed that the decompression chambers will be placed in the country’s two central hospitals, in Praia and Mindelo, to help treat these cases.
“These are two fundamental pieces of equipment to combat this disease and our perspective is, within two or three years, to ensure that the two main central hospitals, Hospital Baptista de Sousa and Hospital Universitário Agostinho Neto, have two chambers, one each, and with specialized technicians to resolve this problem”, assured Susano Vicente.
This disease, also known as decompression sickness, afflicts many divers during deep dives and in Cape Verde, Apesc has already identified dozens of cases, with unpreparedness being the main cause of the problem.
“Many divers dive without a specific technique, which the practice requires, they dive without preparation and end up contracting the disease. In diving at great depths and with compression, oxygen and nitrogen end up being diluted in the blood and with rapid ascent, end up having this problem, which also leads to paraplegia”, explained the president of Apesc.
A situation that, as I said, requires special attention from the State and civil society, as it leads to the disability and disability of many of these sea workers.
Another of the winning projects in the competition is from Associação Soluz which, according to José Dias, on behalf of the project, wants to use the prize to develop a project to facilitate the possibility of physiotherapy at home for children with very reduced mobility.
Furthermore, there will be the possibility of paying for transport for children to meet physiotherapists to carry out treatments.
“We have 12 beneficiaries of outpatient physiotherapy and eight at home, which completes the total of 20 children who will benefit in this first phase”, explained José Dias, who also assured that the intention is to reach new partners to cover other beneficiaries.
At the moment, the association has registered all children from the Canalona Children’s Center for Children with Special Needs, and others who do not have the possibility of treatment at the center.
The third edition of the Community Guarantee Award aims to promote the development of the third sector through support for non-governmental organizations and other non-profit institutions that develop their activity in the areas of social inclusion of people with disabilities and health prevention, “with a special focus on Children”.
According to administrator Luís Leite, there were 12 applications and five of them were chosen, with prizes ranging between 500 thousand escudos and a thousand contos, because “more than commercial”, the insurance company works with people’s lives.
“We are an insurance company that sells security for life and material assets and it makes sense, alongside public authorities, for us to also try to join our voice and sponsor prizes that have to do with health prevention”, declared Luís Leite, at the award ceremony of the two awards in Mindelo.
This award, which will be biannual, will be paused in 2024 to adjust the regulations, which are “too demanding” and create difficulties for associations when submitting their applications.
The last three awards will be delivered in Praia to Associação Colmeia, Liga Nazarena and Associação São Francisco Xavier, at the end of the month.
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