By Septimus Senessie in Kono
Thirty-five Maternal Child Health Aides, MCH-Aides, have received their certificates after completing a 3-year training at the training centre in Koidu town, Kono district.
While handing over the certificates the centre coordinator, Sister Hellen Matturie, expressed gratitude to UNICEF, the district and city councils and the health ministry for their timely support in training and graduating the second batch of students.
She said the centre started with 37 students in 2010 but only 35 successfully completed the training, and called for support to keep potential students in the district.
Deputy chairman of the Kono district council, Solomon Gbondo, said his council was “providing fees for 30 students to enrol into the school and promised to continue similar assistance to the centre so as to train more nurses and ensure that the Free Health Care Initiative succeeds in the district”.
Paramount Chief of Soa Chiefdom, Emmanuel Torche Foryoh, thanked the teachers of the school for training more people to add to the few in the field who provided better health care services to the people of the district, especially the children and women. “The new graduate aides must always put humanity before money”, he warned.
In her keynote speech the principal public health officer at the directorate of primary health care in the ministry of health, Nanah Sesay-Kamara, urged the new health officers to be professional as they went about doing their work in the field. She urged them to be conscious of their responsibility and to save lives at all times.
Earlier, chairman of the ceremony and deputy Mayor of Koidu, Sia Theresa Ngenda, described the day as a “milestone in the development of the health sector in Kono district”.
(C) Politico 03/04/14
