By Mustapha Sesay
Parliament on Tuesday ratified a US$10 million loan agreement åbetween the government of Sierra Leone and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to finance a project aimed at improving the health system, with specific focus on reducing maternal and neonatal mortality.
Laying the draft agreement in the well of parliament was Minister of State at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Alhaji Foday Mansaray, who said the overall objective was to contribute to the realization of one of the main targets of the National Health Sector Strategy, which was the reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality through strengthening of the health system.
Mansaray said the project would specifically look at improvement and access to quality maternal health care services both at community and facility level. He explained that the project was aligned with the National Health Sector Strategic Plan, which identifies delivering quality health services and developing human resources for health workers among its core strategies for ensuring equitable and affordable health care services to all citizens.
According to the Minister, the planned project entailed in the agreement consists of four components - Capacity Building for Maternal and Child Health (MCH), Infrastructure Development, Community Sensitization and Support to Project Management. These, he said, constitute a direct consolidation of the government`s Free Healthcare Initiative.
200 Community Health Workers would be trained, using the standard training package jointly developed by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) and UNICEF and they would also be equipped with a kit that will include Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT), Respiratory rate counter, Anti-pain medications, bicycles and motor cycles, the document presented to parliament indicate.
In addition, the Minister said, 200 more Community Health Officers would be trained at the School of Clinical Science in Makeni, 70 midwives would be admitted biannually to the Midwifery Training School (MTS) in Kenema throughout the life of the project, and a radio station known as ‘Family Radio’ would be established in the MTS in Kenema and operated by the Midwives.
10 medical Doctors, six of which would be women, would be trained in Obstetrics and Gynecology, the minister added, noting that these doctors, after they would have been trained, would sign an agreement with the government which would ensure that they work with the project for five years at least after graduation.
Debating on the draft loan agreement before it was ratified, All People’s Congress (APC) party lawmaker, Patricial Brown, described it as the finest bill to be ratified by parliament. She said this was so because it was primarily focused on the health of women and their unborn children.
MP Brown said it was time for women to be liberated from the burden of maternal mortality across the country. She then called on her colleagues to ratify the agreement.
Opposition Sierra Leone Peoples’ Party Paramount Chief member, Kongomoh Joseph Kavula, said as Paramount Chiefs they stood to benefit a lot because it was there communities that were hardest hit by maternal mortality and noted that the project would ensure that more women give birth safely in remote communities.
Another APC MP, Adulai Sesay, who doubles as chairman of the parliamentary oversight committee on Health, said it was important that the project focuses on the rural communities where health care services for pregnant women were lacking. He mentioned Koinadugu, one of the beneficiary communities, as one of the districts in the country which were still lagging behind in terms of health infrastructure and services.
Re - W/African newspapers call for action on health
Today we present, in this edition, two articles, the first of a series of about a dozen in-depth stories, interviews, profiles, etc., on the state of national health systems in selected West African countries.
This is part of a regional media collaboration seeking to challenge governments to pay more attention to the health sector.
Nine leading newspapers involving 15 journalists in eight West African countries, among them Sierra Leone`s Politico newspaper, in these articles highlighted a dysfunctional health system in the region and called for action by the authorities and the public through demanding accountability.
The articles are being published via the Dakar-based newsletter ‘Ouestaf News’, operated by the nine newspapers.
Ouestaf News comprises one newspaper each from four francophone and four Anglophone countries.
The other newspapers are Le Progrès (Benin), The Daily Graphic (Ghana), La République (Guinea), Front Page Africa (Liberia), Les Echos (Mali), Daily Trust (Nigeria) and Enquête (Senegal).
Their investigations revealed the lack of facilities, human resources, and at times mismanagement of the few available resources, or professional flaws. They uncovered huge amounts of money being spent by governments to send abroad a privileged minority, including the very heads of state elected to ensure the provision of these services, to be cured for diseases as benign as a cold.
(C) Politico 26/06/15
