Sierra Leone: Health ministry inaugurates teaching hospital board

 

A small health post in the west end of Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown

By Kemo Cham

The Ministry of Health in Sierra Leone has inaugurated the University Teaching Hospital Complex Board to oversee the operation of the recently established Teaching Hospital Administration Complex (UTHAC).

The UTHAC, which came into existence through the Teaching Hospitals Complex Administration Act 2016, is an initiative designed by the government to boost medical teaching with practical experience.

Teaching hospitals are affiliated with medical schools and provide specialized medical care to patients, as well as clinical education and training for doctors, nurses and other health professionals.

Six major hospitals nationwide were designated teaching hospitals by the piece of legislation which also created the Board with an oversight responsibility over the administration of the teaching hospitals.

The women’s rights activist, Dr Nemata Majeks-Walker, is chairing the board, while Nigerian Professor of Medicine and Gastroenterology, Jesse Abiodun Ortegbayo, has been named Chief Medical Director of Teaching Hospitals Administration Complex.

Officials say the establishment of the UTHAC is part of ongoing

transformation of the health sector with the goal of providing specialized training in the medical field. It would also help in the realization of the dream of providing postgraduate studies for young medical professionals.

Presently Sierra Leonean medical doctors have to undertake studies abroad after completing their first degree locally. This often involves lengthy waiting due to scarcity of scholarship opportunities.

The practice of sending doctors for specialized training in other countries is both expensive and does not always produce the desired number of specialists since many doctors fail to return home after completion of training, said the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, noting that the consequence of this has been the number of specialists in the country constantly remaining low and therefore inadequate to meet its needs.

Dr Abubacarr Fofanah, Minister of Health, who presided over the inauguration of the UTHAC board, noted that the initiative would also contribute to research, something that’s virtually nonexistent in Sierra Leone.

Fofanah remarked that teaching hospitals provide high standard of services and attract high profile professionals seeking knowledge from across the world. They also provide advanced health services that meet the highest international clinical and ethical standards, he added at the inauguration on February 8.

Teaching hospitals, the minister added, also offer and encourage the practice of evidence based medicine, specialised surgeries, modern drugs and other intensive treatments that a general or regional hospital cannot provide.

For ordinary Sierra Leoneans, the government hopes that the initiative will reduce the need of seeking healthcare out of the country.

This is the first major development in efforts for the training of medical professionals since the establishment of the College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences (COMAHS), Sierra Leone’s only officially recognized training center for doctors, in 1988.

For the last over 22 years since its inception, COMAHS has produced hundreds of medical doctors without any formal affiliation to a teaching hospital. It has used Connaught, PCMH, Lakkah and other government facilities to achieve this.

“Although Connaught, Princess Christian Maternity, Ola During and the Lakka Hospitals have been used over the years as Teaching Hospitals, they are not teaching hospitals in the full sense of the word because there is no statutory instrument that establish them and as such have serious implication,” Health Fofanah minister told lawmakers back in March when he first introduced the UTHAC bill.

Alongside these hospitals, the Kissy Psychiatric hospital, and the China Sierra Leone Friendship Hospital, also known as Jui Hospital, located in Jui in the Western Rural District, have now been designated as teaching hospitals under the UTHAC Act. The three regional hospitals in Bo, Kenema and Makeni districts were also designated to serve as affiliate teaching hospitals.

Long before the 2014 Ebola outbreak, which claimed the lives of over 200 health workers, among them 11 doctors, Sierra Leone was struggling with a huge shortage of human resources in the sector. It currently has a doctor-patient ratio of 3:100, 000. About 350 doctors are registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Sierra Leone.

WHO benchmark required that Sierra Leone had a minimum of 1, 200 doctors while its population was at six million. Its current population, according to the latest census results, over seven million.