By Mabinty M.Kamara in Bo
The head of the school of Midwifery in Bo, southern Sierra Leone has highlighted lack of sustainable electricity supply on the campus as part of the challenges facing the institution in its day to day activities.
The school, located on the Bo Kenema-highway currently houses 125 students including four males in it facility according to the Patricia Mokowa head of the school and has since its establishment in 2017 produced over 700 midwives deployed across the country contributing to a notable decline in maternal mortality from 1,360 per 100 000 live births in 2013 to 510 in 2023. Infant mortality has also dropped from 92 per 1,000 live births to 75 in 2013.”
Madam Mokowa acknowledged that the support of the German government through the Action Medior helped them with the solar electrification system but that the batteries went down not long after it was installed. “And since we are not connected to the national grid and the batteries for the solar are not good, we have to constantly rely on generator supply and fuel is costly,” she said.
She highlighted the lack of accommodation for both the staff and students as another major challenge for those coming from faraway places to study, noting that the distance from Bo city to the school is quite a long one, especially for early morning classes.
Vanday Sarah Sidikie 51, a first year student of a two year program told Politico that she has been a general nurse for 10 years and that she came to specialize in the midwifery course because throughout her career as a general nurse she had interacted with maternity patients and realized the gap in terms of the number of trained and qualified midwives to attend to maternal and neonatal cases in the country.
She said: “If we have enough midwives in the country that can help women from pregnancy to child birth, I believe that the rate of maternal mortality would reduce drastically. That is what motivated me to enroll for the midwifery program despite the challenges. I am currently in block 2 and will soon be sent for practical maternity facilities.”
One of the male students, Osman Bende Bangura expressed similar sentiment about his inspiration to enrol in the school but referred to the lack of accommodation on campus as a major challenge.
Bangura also highlighted stigmatization from patients, saying: “Most times even for them to accept a male nurse to palpate them when they come to clinics it’s a challenge. Some out rightly refuse to have a male nurse attend to them. But that is why we exist to support them so we do our best to help them understand our role.”
The school which offers free tuition fees to students according to Madam Mokowa was established in 2017 with funding support from the Federal government of Germany through a German Civil Society organization called Action Medior who collaborated with Caritas Sierra Leone for the establishment of the school which happened to be the third in the country after Freetown and Makeni. This, she said, was aimed at bridging the gap in midwifery education that only existed in the two regions.
In his response, the head of Cooperation at the German embassy in Sierra Leone Johannes Behrens expressed delight over the progress of the school, saying that they have heard their concerns. He urged the school authorities to continue their good work for the greater good of Sierra Leone.
Copyright © 2024 Politico (29/05/24)
