By Saio Marrah
The Defence Minister, Retired Brigadier General Kellie Hassan Conteh, has on behalf of his ministry donated provisions and cash to admitted patients at the 34 Military Hospital in Freetown.
The gifts donated include milk, mayonnaise, cocoa powder, spaghetti among others.
The presentation ceremony held on Thursday 15th December, 2022 saw the minister handing over the packages of the gifts and cash to each of the patients of the wards visited.
The beneficiaries were patients at the Maternity, Private, Medical, Emergency, Accident and Surgical Wards.
Certain units at a new facility of the hospital- tropical infectious diseases prevention and control centre were also among the beneficiaries of the donation.
Later the defence minister informed journalists of how significant the gifts are to the leadership of Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF) and the ministry of defence.
He said it is part of their tradition as commanders of the force to pay visits to their troops that are injured or sick either during war or peace.
He said “in peace time we do so at Christmas period to come and join with them, to pray to God Almighty to help them get well.”
He also noted that most times they do send gifts to their troops in the provinces through their commanders.
Conteh also pointed out that annually, they do send solidarity message to the troops and do so by having staff officers visit them physically and make provisions for Christmas party and other activities.
He said while some of the provisions came from the ministry the rest came from their friends and partners like the Milla Group and the EcoBank.
He thanked their donors whom he said have been supporting RSLAF in the past and still continue to do so.
He also used the opportunity to thank the first family’s Maada and Fatima Bio Foundation for what he described as massive infrastructure that is on-going at the military’s main hospital vicinity.
He said the First lady and First Family are personally funding the 500 bed hospital project.
After expressing his fulfilment as a political head of the military, and that he is looking forward to commission the facilities ,he went on to point out that such development as a demonstration of the government’s vision and aspiration to assist the RSLAF to raise it level of efficiency in the provision of healthcare services.
This facility he said is not only for the troops but other communities as well.
“And these are also in tandem with many other programmes taking place for the armed forces both here in the Western Area and up country,” Conteh disclosed.
The Commander Joint Medical Unit of RSLAF, Colonel Dr. Stephen Sevalie, expressed how overwhelmed he felt and as seen also by the expression on the faces of the patients.
He also admitted that it has been part of their tradition from time in memorial that the senior management of ministry to come down and visit patients that are sick especially “entitled personnel” (serving personnel, their dependants and retires).
He said the distinction this time is that the scope has expanded to include all patients that are either related to military or not.
He also noted that the majority of the patients in the hospital are none entitled or civilians in general.
Commenting on the total number of patients benefited from the gift he said they initially planned for 77, but since the number of patients keeps changing it instead increased to 82 beneficiaries.
He also joined in thanking the First Lady, Fatima Bio for the on-going massive infrastructure at the hospital.
He described it as a development for country as a whole.
Copyright © 2022 Politico (19/12/22)
