By Mohamed K Turay
Lactating mothers and pregnant women whom The Nationalist newspaper conducted exclusive interviews with yesterday at the Ola During Children’s Hospital, in the eastern part of Freetown, said the Free Health Care Initiative was now dead.
The Free Health Care Initiative was launched in 2010 by the erstwhile government of Ernest Bai Koroma, which aimed at providing free medical services to lactating mothers, pregnant women, and children under five.
Some lactating mothers and pregnant women intimidated this medium that drugs which used to be provided free-of-charge for them and their under-five children were no longer being provided since the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) government of President Julius Maada Bio came to power over five years ago.
They also informed The Nationalist that health care workers were in the habit of issuing out prescription forms and directing them to buy the prescribed drugs in pharmacies outside the hospital.
One nurse, who is attached to the Ola During Children’s Hospital, told this newspaper that not that they did not want to provide the free health care services for the three categories of Sierra Leoneans but the drugs were not available in the hospital.