By Mohamed K. Turay
Health Alert Sierra Leone last Friday engaged stakeholders in Tonkolili District, north-west Sierra Leone, at the Tonkolili District Council conference hall.
The essence of the engagement, according to Victor Lansana Koroma the Executive Director of Health Alert, was to promote social accountability in the health sector and as well as to increase domestic financing to support the health service delivery in Sierra Leone.
While giving the rationale for the meeting, Victor Lansana Koroma said the engagement aimed at establishing a foundation for collaboration and information sharing. He noted that the attitudes of some health workers to patients were undermining the progress of the health sector.
Mr Lansana Koroma encouraged them to respect patients’ decisions while accessing health facilities, adding that health workers should be friendly to their patients.
He pointed out that his organization was aware of the unavailability of drugs and that nurses should not hide information to patients especially when there was no drugs in their hospitals or health centres.
Victor Lansana Koroma encouraged lactating mothers, pregnant women, and health workers present to bring out burning issues affecting their wellbeing and their facilities in order for his organization to see how he could engage the relevant authorities for prompt actions.
He reiterated the fact that huge amounts of funds were being disbursed to Tonkolili District to improve the health sector there but that his organisation realized that no efforts were made on the part of those responsible to improve the health sector in that part of the country.
The Health Alert Executive Director also encouraged beneficiaries of the health facility to be bold enough to tell his organizations the challenges they were faced with in accessing the health facilities as health was their fundamental human right of which they should not be deprived of.
He concluded that his organization was happy to interact with pregnant women and lactating mothers, and that his role was to ensure funds meant for the health sector were well utilized and that his organization in turn would give feedbacks to their partners and as well as the central government.
The Health Alert’s Tonkolili District Coordinator, Ibrahim Pelius Kamara, said that months ago he visited three Community Health Centres (CHCs) in Masingbi, Bendugu and Mile 91 and that he discovered that there were no separate toilet facilities and water wells for health workers.
He added that there was also no electricity facilities as well as poor sanitation in most of the health facilities he visited.
Mr Kamara concluded that there was no ambulance service for referrals as well as inadequate drugs in stores which led to health workers procuring and selling drugs to their patients.
Representatives of the District Medical Officer and the District Pharmacy Board admitted to most of the issues unearthed by Health Alert and promised to address them as soon as the funds were made available to them.
The engagement was funded by the Population Action International (PAI) based in the United States of America.