By Mohamed K. Turay
Health Alert Sierra Leone, a Non-Governmental Organisation promoting health issues, has conducted a quarterly awareness raising meeting with key stakeholders working in the Health Sector on COVID-19 vaccines and finances.
The engagement targeted health workers from the Benguema Barracks Health Post, White Stone Clinic, Campbell Town, Wellington Health Center, Kingharman Road Hospital and many others.
The essence of the engagement was to know whether there was intake of the COVID-19 vaccines as well as the challenges facing the health sector in those places.
During the engagement the Team Leader of Health Alert, David Allieu who doubles as Team Lead for COVID-19, encouraged health practitioners to be bold enough to bring out issues affecting the Health Sector in their respective PHUs and clinics; and that Health Alert in turn would engage officials of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation for prompt actions.
David Allieu noted that the engagement was also geared towards capacity building, and stressed that COVID-19 was “still with us” which was one of the reasons why they embarked on such meetings.
In their submissions, health workers said that “isolation and pin code” were two of the challenges they were faced with, whilst others said the delay of payment of their stipends was also challenging.
Some said their own challenges were rain gears, lack of permanent structures, linkages in some health centers, and poor electricity supply.