Sierra Leone launches five-year health promotion strategy

By Kemo Cham

The Ministry of Health and partners in Sierra Leone have launched a new five-year National Health Promotion Strategy designed to strengthen health services delivery in the country.

The strategy, done with the support of the USAID-funded Health Communication Capacity Collaborative of Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, details the national health promotion priorities of the country for the period 2017 - 2021. Officials say it is geared towards reducing the disease burden in the country, with particular focus on maternal mortality.

According to a joint statement published by the Ministry of Health and USAID, on Thursday, the strategy entails six objectives: Strengthening health

promotion intervention; coordination; human resources; capacity building; resource mobilization; monitoring and evaluation; and knowledge management. It also entails a budget implementation plan and indicators for measuring the progress of strategy implementation.

Mr Lansana Conteh, Programme Manager of the Health Education Division of the Health ministry, said the document is set to raise the bar for higher quality health promotion. His department led the effort in the development of the strategy.

Conteh said the document will support the government’s Health Sector Recovery Plan, another five-year programme designed to reposition the health sector to its pre-Ebola status.

Dr Saad El-DinHassan, Health Advisor with USAID-Sierra Leone, said the strategy will contribute greatly to effort to reduce maternal mortality.

“It is important that partners and donors continue to work together toward supporting the operationalisation of these efforts,” he states.  

The strategy targets adolescents as key audiences with a goal of achieving the greatest impact in morbidity and mortality. This is crucial given that teenage pregnancy is major factor of maternal mortality in Sierra Leone. Official statistics show that 40 percent of maternal deaths are attributed to teenage pregnancy.

“The value of choosing a priority audience is having agencies in the country rally around the cause of providing these young people with the information and motivation they need to start their lives in a healthy manner,” the organisers noted in the joint statement issued ahead of the launch.

The NHPS replaces the latest national health promotion document launched in 2010, which succeeded the 2000 Health Education Policy.

The experience of the 2014 Ebola epidemic informed much of what went into making this latest document, say health ministry officials, with particular focus on the essential role of community structures in promoting health.

The Chief Medical Officer at the MoHS, Dr Brima Kargbo, spoke at the launching ceremony on Thursday about the need to strengthen community ownership of the implementation of the strategy through effective community engagement.

“We will only succeed when people take care of their health status,” he said.