By Steven Bockarie Mansaray
Authorities in Koinadugu, north of the country, have restructured the two main groups tasked with eradicating the Ebola virus disease in that district.
The District Ebola Taskforce Committee (DETC) and the recently created District Ebola Response Center (DERC) have got new leadership.
Doctor (retired) Alhaji Fasineh Samura, who until now headed both bodies, has been confirmed the substantive head of the DERC. He was replaced by Sajor Bah at the taskforce level.
Koinadugu was the last district to record any case of the Ebola virus disease in the country. It kept the virus at bay for about five months even when the rest of the country battled it. And that was said to be as a result of the combined efforts of the District Health Management Team, the taskforce committee and other partners.
The district recorded its first case early October. As of the last statistics from the National Ebola Response Center (NERC), it has 103 cases.
The DERC in Koinadugu only came into existence about two months ago. Dr. Samura had found it difficult to coordinate its activities while at the helm of the grassroots-based taskforce committee, officials said.
In a meeting recently held at the district council hall in Kabala, Momoh Conteh, who has been very supportive of the taskforce, presented a list of the new members to run its activities. He thanked the out-gone executive for their “good job”.
The new taskforce committee leader,Mr. Bah, was until recently coordinating the activities of the Ebola taskforce in Mongo Chiefdom. His new mandate is to end the spread of the virus in the whole district within 50 days.
The two organisations have promised to work closely with their eyes fixed on a single goal of defeating the virus.
Speaking on behalf of Paramount Chiefs in the district, PC Alhaji Hamidu of Wara Wara Bafodia chiefdom thanked the Samura-led executive for a good job done and encouraged Mr. Bah and his team to involve everybody who has a key role to play to eradicate the virus from the district.
Chairman of the district bike riders’ association, Alphajor Barrie and Fatu Makalay Sesay, a youth representative, encouraged the stakeholders to add women into the committee. They observed that no woman was on the new list.
They also urged taskforce members to improve on the aspect of transparency and accountability, especially with regards gifts received on behalf of the people of the district.
Meanwhile, health workers in the primary and secondary health care sector in the district say they have circulated a letter to the authorities complaining about delay in payment of their incentives. In a letter dated 12 January 2015, seen by Politico, the health workers alleged that some of them have only received their incentives for the first two weeks of last November and nothing for the whole of December and the first weeks of January 2015.
They urged the authorities to act on the issue urgently, failure of which they threatened to withhold their services until all their incentives are fully paid.
In an interview with Politico some aggrieved workers claimed that they were asked to submit their bank details and phone numbers for payment, but nothing good came out of the exercise.
Presently, a good number of the health workers are in Kabala waiting for the issue to be addressed. They have abandoned their health centers at their various communities.
The chief of staff of the District Ebola Response Centre, Lieutenant Colonel I. S Kamara, said the District Medical Officer was in Freetown to make a follow up on the issue. He said there were staff members at the centre who had been without salary since it started operation. But he urged the aggrieved health workers to exercise restraint while waiting for the problem to be resolved.
© Politico 16/01/15
