Health ministry on mass recruitment of workers

By Kemo Cham

Nurses at a Sierra Leone health facility

[First published on www.politicosl.com] The Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) has announced the commencement of mass recruitment of health workers with a view of enhancing the human resource base of an overstretched health sector.

The recruitment process is targeting volunteer health workers who served in the national Ebola response. Over 500 of them, from 11 districts, are being enlisted by the National Health Service Commission (NHSC) as Maternal and Child Health Assistants (MCHA), who were previously called Maternal and Child Health Aides.

The NHSC is responsible for recruitment and appointment of personnel within the health ministry. It does so in conjunction with the directorate of Human Resources of the ministry.

Dr Alpha Bundu-Kamara, Chairman NHSC, cited the country’s poor health indices which have been worsened by the Ebola epidemic. He said the infant mortality rate, which stands at 140 per 1,000 live births, and maternal mortality rate at 857 per 1,000 live births, illustrated the n

eed for major expansion within the health sector.

He told Politico that the move is in fulfillment of a pronouncement by President Ernest Bai Koroma in 2014 that all health workers who volunteered in the fight to contain the Ebola epidemic be employed in recognition of the services.

The new recruits will be trained to provide safe motherhood services including antennal and post-natal care as well as advise on family planning and encourage mothers to exclusively breastfeed their new born for six months.

The NHSC said the recruitment process that is expected to be expanded across the country will last for six weeks.

“What is happening now is interview,” Dr Bundu said on a telephone interview, adding that all 554 former volunteers will eventually be enlisted because they were well trained in their areas.

All of the recruits are nurses.

Chief Nursing Officer, Matron Hossinatu Kanu, was quoted saying that the change in the nomenclature from MCH Aides to MCH Assistant demonstrated “an added value” to their career pathways.

“Nurses, as officially recorded, form the largest work force in the health sector, and work in close collaboration with doctors and other cadre to make the necessary impact,” she told the communications unit of the ministry

(C) Politico 23/02/16