By Kemo Cham
[First published on Politicosl] Health ministry officials and
partners on Wednesday engaged on a brainstorming session to tackle the
country’s high rate of maternal mortality.
Officials from the Ministry of
Health and Sanitation (MoHS), NGOs and civil society organizations stressed the
need for collaboration, provision of relevant resources and assurance of
sustainability for projects being implemented.
Sierra Leone currently ranks as
having the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, at 1, 360 deaths per
100, 000 live births. This has been largely attributed to the dysfunctional
nature of the healthcare system as a whole. The Italian NGO Doctors With
Africa, known by its acronym CUAMM, managed to run what has been described as
the maternal healthcare delivery facility in the country. It is located in one
of the remotest part of the country – Pujehun District.
Besides the over 300, 000 population
in Pujehun, CUAAM serves people from neighboring districts.
Wednesday’s session was convened to
share ideas on how to replicate the Pujehun
experience to the rest of the
country.
Dr Santegy Sesay, Director of
Reproductive and Child Health at the MoHS, said a lot of resources were being
poured into the health sector but he wondered why nothing was been realized in
return.
The government has tasked itself to
prevent the death of 600 pregnant women within the next three years as part of
the Post Ebola Recovery programme, he said, noting that to achieve this a
number of plans had been put in place.
But regardless of what resources are
poured into the system, there can be no positive result without the cooperation
of every stakeholder, said Dr Sesay.
“If we continue doing business as
usual, I don’t see things happening now,” he said.
CUAMM has been in Sierra Leone since
2012.
Stopping the high rate of maternal
mortality is not impossible, said Dr Anders Nordström, Country
Representative of the World Health Organisation. He said trust for the health
system by the people, among others, were key to tackling the issue of maternal
mortality.
But in order to achieve all this, he
said, partners needed to seat around the table.
(C) Politico 17/03/16
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