By Abass Jalloh
The Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) together with various partners will host a three-day National Health Summit and Recognition Award at the Bintumani Conference Centre in Freetown in early April. The event to highlight the transformation of the healthcare delivery systems in the country will commence at the Bintumani Conference Centre in Freetown on the 7th of April 2022.
Participants for the summit will include the MoHS headquarter districts, development partners, civil society, expert patients, and the media.
Speaking at a press conference by the Ministry of Information and Communications on Thursday 17th March 2022, the Minister of Health and Sanitation, Dr. Austin Demby, stated that their current mission as a ministry is to transform the health sector from an “an under sourced, ill-equipped and inadequate healthcare delivery system into an adequately resourced and functioning national delivery system that is affordable and accessible to all, especially the most vulnerable segment of the population.”
“To do this, all key stakeholders in the socio-economic development space of Sierra Leone and all decision-makers in the health sector must urgently and collaboratively develop a workable formula,” the minister stated. He said service delivery if done properly, will ameliorate the high morbidity rate, increase coverage and improve accountability and efficiency.
Dr. Demby confirmed that the ministry and partners have identified the health summit as a way of thoroughly examining opportunities for accomplishing the mission of the ministry on behalf of the people of Sierra Leone.
According to the minister, deliberations will be followed by recommendations and then be climaxed with awards to health workers who continue to make a difference.
The Representative of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Steven Velabo Shongwe, said the summit is expected to bring together all department officials that are involved in healthcare delivery to review the progress that that has been made in the sector, identify the challenges and reach a common consensus on how to improve healthcare delivery.
He said WHO wants to make sure that Sierra Leone attains universal health coverage before or by 2030. “I want once again to reiterate that we will support the national health summit. We will provide financial support, and we will also provide technical support to make sure that it is a big success,” Dr. Shongwe stated.
The Chief Executive Officer of Africell Sierra Leone, Shadi Gerjawi said he was “particularly attracted to the summit’s theme about transforming healthcare delivery and universal healthcare coverage, which is similar to their telecommunication focus on transforming, delivery and universal coverage.
Citing that they are always with communities, Gerjawi said Africell has always been close to communities when it comes to disaster, adding that people would now be connected through Africell when it comes to health delivery.
Civil Society Activist Charles Mambu commended the idea of the summit and the recognition that will be accorded, to health workers.
Mambu stated: “There have been health workers who have sacrificed so much. Today as we speak, some of them are still volunteers, volunteering in the very far and hard-to-reach communities, yet still, they are providing their services, especially those women who are nurses in those communities. Recognizing them will continue to motivate them and others who will follow after them to ensure that they provide the needed and the required services for which our country really needs.”
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