By Septimus Senessie in Kono
World Vision Austria, a Christian charitable child focused nongovernment organization, through their Kono office, has embarked on a free medical treatment of hundreds of sick people at the Koidu referral hospital.
They have also done the same for their two sponsored communities of Fiama and Soa chiefdoms in the eastern Kono district. The treatment only targeted women and children.
Head of communication and advocacy, Anton Kuhnelt-Leddihn, said they were providing sponsors for Fiama and Soa chiefdoms’ Area Community Development program (ADP) and that their motive for a free medical treatment to those communities was “to show love and concern” for the children and women.
He said they were also working towards complementing government’s efforts at providing affordable medical services to the growing numbers of children and women in the country.
Sounding biblical, he said they were following the footsteps of Jesus Christ who had thought them how to care for the destitute and needy.
Asked whether they had any plans of establishing hospitals in the district to continue helping the poor, Anton said they were not but assured that they would render a helping hand to the country’s medical sector.
Speaking to Politico, the head of Sanatorium St. Leonhard Hospital in Austria, David Klener, said the free medical treatment was meant for vulnerable children and women in the communities and the Koidu referral hospital, which was not financially strong enough to service their patients.
He said the seven-day free medical treatment would be climaxed by a day’s medical training of nurses on how to take proper care of pregnant women and children, whom they identified as some of the biggest problems at the public health units and the government referral hospital in Koidu.
Klener pointed out that during their operations any complicated case was referred to the government hospital where pregnant women with complications had been rescued through Caesarean operations.
Regional Manager for World Vision Sierra Leone, Catherine Sillah, thanked the benefactors for supporting the two communities in Fiama and Soa chiefdoms. She said their main concerns were the children whom she described as the future of society.
She said they cared for the education, health, moral and spiritual wellbeing of the children in those communities.
(C) Politico 30/10/13
