By Prince J. Musa in Kenema
Representatives of partner organizations in the Strengthening Accountability and Building Inclusion (SABI) project have concluded a monitoring visit to Gao Village with calls for urgent action by the government on the community’s deplorable healthcare facility.
Goa is located in Dama Chiefdom in the eastern Kenema District. Its over 400 population relies on only one health facility – Gao Maternity Community Health post.
The under-staffed facility has been struggling to meet the people’s needs amidst lack of equipment and poor working condition for the healthcare workers.
SABI is a UK-funded project comprising a consortium of NGOs and civil society organisations working to ensure service delivery and accountability. It brings together community people and local authorities to discuss issues affecting their livelihoods in three sectors – health, education and social safety.
Headed by the international charity, Christian Aid, the SABI consortium’s goal is to ensure accountability by creating awareness among the citizens and increase the demand for service delivery.
The health NGO, Focus 1000, is one of the leading implementing partners of the project. Its Communication and Advocacy Officer, Elizabeth Agatha Musa Conteh, headed the monitoring team that included a representative from the Ministry of Health and Sanitation to Gao. Addressing the community people and staff of the health post, Ms Conteh said they’d received a complaint from one of the SABI partner organizations in the district, Restless Development, about the deplorable status of the health post, which included lack of power, noting that the solar system at the facility had been dysfunctional for a long time. She added that the refrigerator had also been dysfunctional, leaving the facility constantly out of stuck of lifesaving vaccines. The complaints filed by Restless Development, according to Conteh, also revealed that the delivery room in the facility was too small and that the nurses were faced with many other related challenges.
“The nurses use torchlight to do delivery at night, which is very dangerous,” Conteh lamented, adding: “The vaccines for immunization lose their potency as a result of lack of refrigerator to preserve them.”
Conteh said the nurses are forced to regularly travel between three and five miles away from the center to access vaccines in a nearby health facility which has a functioning refrigerator. According to her, this situation sometimes forces parents to return home after long waiting without accessing the vaccines.
“This is making many pregnant women in rural communities that face difficulty to access health services to use traditional means, which is contributing to the maternal and infant mortality in these communities,” she said.
Maltida Bunduka, the In-charge of the Gao MCH post, told the monitoring team that the structure wasn’t ideal for a health post as it was purposely built as a private dwelling home, comprising three tinny rooms.
“We use Chinese light to do delivery and there is one delivery room with one bed,” Nurse Bunduka explained.
She said whenever they receive two pregnant women in labour at the same time, one of them had to lie down on the ground while they attended to the urgent one. As soon as the first one delivers, she is placed on the ground while they attend to the next, she said.
Nurse Bunduka said even the apartment where she dwells, which is located a stone’s throw from the health post, was in such bad shape that its roof leaks when it rains.
The Gao MCH post receives patients from as far as surrounding villages, about two to three miles away, yet there are only two nurses at the center, who are aided by a traditional birth attendant.
Bunduka said she had long reported these concerns to the DHMT through the SABI implementing agencies. She said the community people had secured a land for a new structure to be built on and that they were waiting for this to commence after the rains.
James King, Communication Officer from the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, told the community people that all their concerns had been noted and he promised to channel them through to the appropriate authorities in Freetown. In the meantime, King urged the community people to identify community initiatives they can embark on to minimize the impact of the problems confronting them.
“The Ministry can’t do all at the same time and communities needs to take ownership in doing some, because health issue is not only in the hand of health workers but it requires everybody to join,” he said.
Town chief of Gao, Gassimu Kanneh, thanked the team for providing them education for the development of their community and assured them that the messages would be passed on to other chiefs and community members not present at the meeting.
At the DHMT in Kenema, Health Sister, Margret Vincent commended SABI for its role in fixing the healthcare system and for reaching out to them and share with them their findings in the communities.
Kenema District has a total of 122 Peripheral Health Units (PHUs). And according to Sister Kanneh, only 26 of them have refrigerators, noting that the DHMT was aware of the challenges Gao MCH post was facing and that they were working towards ameliorating them.
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