Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital

The Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital (RVTH) is the central hospital in Banjul, the Gambia.

The governmental hospital is located at Independence Drive in Banjul and is with over 540 beds as the biggest state-of-the-art hospital. It was originally built under British colonisation of Africa in 1853. The operation of Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) was improved with the help of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny in 1903.

The Hospital's name was extended to Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital in the late 1990s, since it became part of the newly founded faculty of medicine of the University of the Gambia and therefore includes the training of medical doctors and other medical professions. The first 15 students started schooling in November 2002 at RVTH. The Hospital is further more participation in international research-studies concerning the fight against malaria and hepatitis.

The need for tertiary medical education was addressed in 1994, by Gambia’s President, Dr. Alh. Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh when he made health and education priorities for his government, the School of Medicine became the lead faculty in establishing the first university in Gambian history.

Dr. Yankuba Kassama, Secretary of the Department of State for Health and Social Welfare, recalls that President Jammeh made his first visit to Cuba in the late 1990s. As a result, in September 1999, the first Cuban professors arrived in the Gambia, led by Dr. Arturo Menéndez, who was to become the School’s first Dean of Basic Sciences. The curriculum slowly began to take shape, with further assistance from Cuba, and the World Health Organization. In 2005, the Gambia's first 15 physicians graduated from the school.

MBChB (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) 6 year course description:

The curriculum is very similar to Cuba’s in the basic sciences, but the clinical part is mostly based on those of medical schools in the United Kingdom, however adoptions to local requirements based on West African training models, especially in tropical medicine have been made. More than 80% of the schools lecturers and professors are doctors who graduated in European/American/Cuban Universities. The students getting training from both ( Western and Cuban) medical systems, since Cuban doctors coming from programs like PIS (Promoting integrated health services), as well as for example, professors of the medical University of Swansea in England, are working in close collaboration with the University of the Gambia.

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