By Hassan Juana Koroma in Bo
Residents in Jimmi town, Bagbo Chiefdom have expressed frustration over the poor health service they are getting in their community. The latest rounds of complaints have come following a fight that broke out at the hospital between two Community Health Officers over allegations of stolen free health care drugs and peanut butter supplies.
Like all health centers in the district, the Jimmy Community Health Center receives free health care drugs from the Government of Sierra Leone. Over the years it has also been receiving peanut butter supplies from NGO’s like World Vision and European Union., which is used to treat malnourished children.
The head of the health center, John Salia and a worker at the center, Moses Tucker fought two weeks ago when the latter accused the former of stealing the drugs and peanut butter.
Community people say sales of food and free health care drugs by the center is common knowledge and that it has contributed to the poor service the health center has been delivering to them.
Salia confirmed to Politico that they fought, but denied it was about stolen food or drugs.
“This is not about food or drugs. This is about people here who have decided to gang up against me and remove me,” he said.
“The man who accused me was transferred to this place because he was caught stealing 11 bales of mosquito net. When he was transferred here people asked if I will be able to work with him and I said I didn’t have any choice because I am a servant of the government,” Salia added.
When Politico contacted Tucker, he denied the allegations of Salia, “I don’t know where he got that from. I wish he had said this to me in my face, because he also repeated the same thing to the DMO whiles we were trying to iron out our differences.”
Both men have thrown wide allegation at each other and they have both denied all of the counter-allegations to Politico. It is not clear what exactly has been going on, what is clear is that this fracas has caused a serious strain on service delivery in the town.
Iye Rogers, a pregnant woman, said she has had to go as far as Nyagorehun Town for her weekly checkup. Nyagorehun is seven miles away from Jimmy Town. She has to go that far because the health center in Jimmy Town is no longer equipped enough and the infighting among the staff has not helped the already bad situation, she said.
“For the past five months I have had to walk to go to Nyagorehun town for Wednesday clinic. This is because in Jimmi health center they don’t provide us proper services,” she said.
Whenever it is time for me to go for clinic, I get frustrated over the behavior of the health workers in Jimmi,” she added.
The community health center in Jimmi used to be very strategic in maternal healthcare service delivery in the district. Several chiefdoms around the town used to refer pregnant women to the center for advanced care, but the deplorable state of the center over the last couple of years has made that impossible.
The District Medical Officer in Bo, Roland Marsh confirmed that his office had received report of the fracas and that he was currently negotiating to end it.
“Yes there is a problem but even yesterday night, I was trying to settle the issue with all the parties involved. We are still negotiating,” Dr Marsh said on a telephone interview.
Investigations have not concluded but whiles they are ongoing, it is hard to see Tucker and Salia working together in the same unit again. Salia told Politico that no matter how the case ends, he will be requesting for the transfer of Tucker.
“I am not going to work with this man again. I will make this as a recommendation to the DMO after our meeting,” he said.
© 2019 Politico Online
