By Prince J Musa in Kenema
The Ministry of Health and Sanitation on the 28th of July 2022 handed over three trucks loaded with assorted medical equipment and drugs to the Management of Kenema Government hospital.
The equipment according to officials include a mobile ultrasound scanner, oxygen concentration, resuscitators, bed screeners, assorted drugs, standard hospital beds, Motorola digital radio, bedside cabinets, stretchers, infusion stands, trolleys, anesthetics drugs, pulse dosimeter, blood pressure machines among others.
While receiving the consignment, District Medical Officer Kenema Dr. Donald Samuel Grant said, that for the health sector to be efficient, it requires competent and well-trained and qualified human resources, infrastructures, and equipment to facilitate the work of the service providers.
He said the move by the Government to provide those materials will give more courage to the health workers to be dedicated to their job and that it will also give confidence to the public that the hospital is equipped enough to save their lives, especially as a regional facility.
The Programme Manager, Health Systems, Dr. Denis Marke, explained that the supply is a result of a proposal that the Ministry of Health and Sanitation developed in 2019 to strengthen health services during Covid periods. He said the government was able to get a loan of ten million dollars for the project from the Islamic Development Bank.
Dr. Marke stated that the project captured all the components of the health system such as the emergency care unit, infrastructures, and human capital development, for which he said the medical technician training on how to maintain and manage the equipment, is in progress.
The manager went on to note that, the project also focuses on preventive maintenance measures rather than allowing the equipment to wreck before maintenance.
He added that the government involved partners such as UNICEF to buy the equipment, hospital consumables, and provision of water supply, while WHO purchased the laboratory equipment and trained the technicians.
The Deputy Chief Medical Officer in the clinical department, Dr. Mustapha Sondiful Kabba commended what he described as collaboration between the primary health care and the hospitals, for effective response to emergency cases in the Kenema district.
He cautioned the health workers to take good care of the equipment and not to misuse them or take them out of the hospital for personal gains and to report any challenges they may experience with the equipment.
The Deputy Minister of Health, Princess Dugba, expressed delight that 95% of the suspected food poisoning cases recorded in Kenema last week have recovered.
She said government discovered that hospitals across the country were underperforming, and therefore, thought it fit to go in for equipment, for the healthcare workers to do their work. She noted that the ministry is working hard to pass into law a policy that will take legal actions against healthcare workers who neglect their job such as having a patient die out of their own inaction or malfeasance.
“We will remove the pin code of any health worker that will neglect their duty when caught guilty, in case a patient die and will go to jail’’ the Minister emphasized.
The deputy Minister stated that parliament will soon pass it into law and advised the nurses and doctors to change the narrative of the perception of the public about health workers.
She pointed out that, anyone caught guilty of mismanaging the equipment supplied will face the brunt of the law because that will be undermining the government, saying that they are fighting to reduce the high rates of maternal mortality rate in the country by providing the required equipment to the medics.
Ms. Dugba appealed to stakeholders to serve as monitors for the items and that the equipment should directly be taken to the wards to be used by the nurses and doctors.
Copyright © 2022 Politico Online (01/08/22)
