By: Mohamed Sahr
In the bid of commemorating World Patients Safety Day, Ministry of Health with partners assured of enriching quality patients safety and maternity care during caesarean delivery across various Government Hospitals in Sierra Leone on Monday at Princess Christian Memory Hospital (PCMH) formally Cottage Hospital in Freetown.
Tom Sesay, Director Reproductive and Child Health Care said patients’ safety could be viewed as the critical element and foundation in achieving quality healthcare across the country. He urged nurses, midwives and families to work crossly in order to enhance patients advocate in dignified and compassionate manner. “We must re-access the safety of the infrastructure of our facilities, look at the equipment’s, supplies, medicines prescribe and their safe use by patients and the capacity of our skills,” he said.
Sesay furthered that the Ministry of Health and partners must acknowledge the power of collaboration and team work as one of the ways towards maintaining quality and efficient safety of the patients. He said through the Ministry’s data finding, patient’s harms could now be prevented in terms of reducing maternal mortality rates in the country.
He mentioned that the Ministry of Health developed a life safety approach within various Government hospitals for affordable healthcare delivery; adding that making the services better would only come with gleaming feathers on the cap of the country and its population.
Margaret Titty Mannah, Matron, Program Manager National Quality Management Programme, Reproductive and Child Health Directorate attached at Ministry of Health said Patients Safety Day sought to raise awareness around quality and safer healthcare delivery nationwide. She added that enriching major health facilities as well as correcting systemic problems were considered as the most important ways of celebrating “World Patients Safety Day” with the theme” Engaging patients for patients safety”.
She revealed that Ministry of Health and partners were tempted to mainly engage the healthcare workers in scientific emerging trends so that the right thing should be done in the right place. “There are numerous gaps especially infrastructure wise amidst the soaring population of the country,” Matron Mannah said.
She assured that the new normal would inform them to work on some of the multifaceted gaps that webbed the improvement and wellbeing of patients who underwent caesarean delivery. Matron Mannah said the country would only make a breakthrough if investment in health, expansion of reproductive human capital and establishment of the enabling environment come to light.
Michele Soci, Country Manager of CUAMM, Doctors with Africa said expressed total commitment to patients’ safety and quality healthcare delivery in Sierra Leone. He mentioned that CUAMM remained steadfast to the strengthening of the health system and quality care in the country.
Fatmata Kamara, Focal Person and Consultant of United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said as part of their underlying commitment towards the provision of affordable healthcare, UNFPA and Ministry of Health trained midwives across the country. She said their mandate was to reduce maternal mortality rates and improve quality patients’ safety.
Emelia Gordon, a patient thanked Ministry of Health and the PCMH facility for a successful Caesarean Surgery that she underwent. She admonished other patients to make their presence felt particularly in critical.