By Prince J Musa in Kenema
Sierra Leone’s Minister of Health and Sanitation has handed over a 6.5 billion Leone project for the rehabilitation of the Kenema government hospital to Broad Engineering and Construction Company. The hospital is the main referral unit for all cases in the district and its environs.
Austin Demby said with health being one of the government’s priority areas to transform the country, the government has decided to rehabilitate twelve government hospitals in the country and that the renovation of Kenema government hospital was important because the hospital serves the whole eastern region.
He said the Broad Engineering Construction is one of the best that was selected based on competitive bidding for the project and that there is a credible consultancy engineering firm that will determine the quality of work that the contractors will be doing, adding that 30% of the money will be released to the company soon to start work.
Demby said the renovation will target specific sectors in the hospital in consultation with the health team in Kenema highlighting the male medical and female wards, surgical ward, pediatric, TB laboratory and ward, X-ray, intensive care unit construction, mortuary, Lassa fever ward, and an Annex. They will also construct walk ways from one department to another, provide boreholes, and elevated tank water within the period of one year.
He said the hospital administration and the stakeholders in Kenema should be proactive in ensuring that the work is done with high quality and the public should see themselves as part of the project implementation by fully monitoring it.
The minister used the opportunity to inform the people of Kenema that the government was sourcing funds to build another ultra-modern hospital in Kenema which upon construction will serve as a teaching hospital with advanced medical equipment that will address most of the health challenges that are transferred to Freetown.
He praised the nurses for their services to the people and committed to doing his best to ensure that nurses are pin-coded. He said the government has recruited four thousand healthcare workers and another one thousand pin-codes have been given to the ministry for recruitment while there are five thousand volunteers in need of pin codes.
He warned health workers with pin–codes that also work for private clinics and hospitals to desist from such because ‘the law will take its course on those found wanting’.
The representative of the Broad Engineering Construction Company, Patrick Parsons, assured the public that they will do their best to work diligently with the hired consultancy firm.
The Deputy Mayor of Kenema, Esther Nguanya Kaisamba commended the government for the step taken ‘to bring such tangible development to the district and in the eastern province as a whole’.
She said the contractor should bear in mind that the project was health-related and should guarantee that it will be speedily done. The Deputy Mayor called on the ministry to expand the delivery room of the maternity section saying that the existing room was small.
Copyright © 2022 Politico Online (16/02/22)
