April 16, 2021
Albert Baron Ansu
The story is built on a mound of dirt in the wrong place-the country’s central referral hospital. It should not be news that Connaught Hospital has been piling dirt to emit malodorous stench. It has always been like that and depicts the extent of rottenness that had eaten deep in the sector charged with the mandate of saving life.
At this material time the unique tinge to the sour reality is in a name of a daring woman, young Medical Doctor. Just by the power of social media her name has gone viral. Did I get it right-Dr. Catherine Jackson Cole? Rightly so-she is between two worlds-Heroine and villain. It all depends on where you want to pigeonhole her between the two extreme poles. I provide you the narrative for to place her somewhere.
Let’s do her justice….did she make a wise choice taking sides with the cleaners to do a citizens journalism in doing a short video with voice over comments of the dirty scene in the full glare of the Deputy Minister and Chief Minister on the spot trying to mediate with the aggrieved works? Ponder the answer from where you are sitting.
Again, was she supposed to be with the patients in the word as right place as opposed to doing journalism that only serves the interest of the opposition running with the scandal that would ensue when she is stripped of the phone and in the ensuing scuffle she hit her elbow against a hard surface and the blister and laceration is unleashed on social media to distort reality? Too hard a question to ask but we cannot help it.
The young Doctor had a choice to make on whose side to stand between the patients in the ward and the cleaners protesting outside. It is a difficult choice to make-come to think of the interlinkages to waste management and public health. In the lay and mundane sense of things we say: cleanliness begets healthiness. So in a very remote way we can but see the young doctor protecting the interest of the cleaners protesting for their unpaid salaries to the extent of refusing to clean and even bringing dirty in the hospital to compel attention of the authorities.
But many are refusing to see Dr. Catherine Jackson Cole action of capturing the cosmetic dirts for social media screen as an innocent and sincere trolling.
“It is a political thing to make the government appear callous and insensitive,” Nurse Rebecca Leigh of Low Cost pointed out.
Minister of Health Dr. Austin Demby presser provides an in-depth insight into the situation. The government used to use potters to clean. Over time the decision was made to outsource the service delivery to contractors. So it is not the government actually owing the cleaners, the contractors are.
The Minister of Health speaks about 1.2 Billion Leones that has been disbursed as operational cost to Connaught hospital management and that is bound to cover the cost the wages of the outsourced cleaners.
In the extant state of stand0ff between the young Doctors threatening in a press release to down tools; and the government trying to have a sustainable and genuine cleaning solution at Connaught Hospital, it is good news that the military will be taking over the task. And we are going to see marked efficiency and sincerity of purpose to clean Connaught Hospital exterior in a pristine way.
This will make us want to render redundant partisan cleaners who have militarized their charge in acts of sabotage; even threatening to stab those volunteers that were brought in to fill the gap in the face of the impasse.
The army is coming in as the ministry seeks a durable solution to problem. But the contrast between the cosmetic dirty exterior of the hospital and the pristine interior-theatre way and ante rooms has struck minister Demby to ask the Matron. She says it is management. Two forms of management, one inside is sincere and one outside is has ulterior motives. Time to fix the problem once and for all.
onnaught Hospital is the principal adult referral hospital in Sierra Leone. Connaught Hospital was opened in 1912 by the Duke of Connaught, Prince Arthur. President Kabbah re-opened the hospital on May 5, 2006, alongside the Princess Christian Maternity Hospital (PCMH).