By: Mohamed Sahr
In an effort to adhering to successive health mechanism across the country, Ministry of Health and Sanitations in collaboration with partners launched a maiden Universal Health and Preparedness Review at the Freetown International Conference Centre on Wednesday 3rd May 2023.
Addressing the gathering, Dr. Austin Demby, Minister of Health and Sanitations said Sierra Leone is the first West Africa nation to host a Universal Health and Preparedness Review as well happens to be the fifth in the world; adding that the Ebola and the COVID-19 outbreaks in Sierra Leone were turning moments for Sierra Leoneas where a compelling number of people lost their lives and thousands infected with the viruses. He noted that the country would never be caught in such ineptitude and inexperienced situations.
Dr. Demby mentioned that Sierra Leone is in full readiness to effectively mobilize and tackle any unforseen or future epidemic otherwise outbreak. He emphasized that this has to be a collective effort ranging from MDAs, traditional leaders and the community frontline workers in order to ensure that the country would not return to what happened in 2014.
He affirmed that Sierra Leone had gone far ahead of any premeditated health outbreak especially in terms of implementation, infrastructure, mobilization, organization and technical supports. “We have got a very strong resilient system where we have invested a lot of time and energy by looking into our healthcare system with diverse well-tailored systems that aligned from pregnancy stage down to the senior citizen stage of life,” Dr. Demby stated.
He furthered that from the support from the Government of Sierra and donor partners, his ministry had built a robust healthcare system that would efficiently response to the demand and improve the health of seven and half million people in Sierra Leone. Minister Demby assured that universal health coverage catered for everybody starting from the pregnant women stage, children survivor stage, kindergarten stage and the adulthood as a way of ensuring that their wellbeing are full targeted with minimum package rulling amongst all the stages.
He said they had documented an early warning system that would quickly inform them of implementing early alert which served as a strong healthcare system that would detect and solve the challenges. Dr. Demby urged everyone to engage in preparation and implementation for a better universal healthcare service in the country.
Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, Honourable Vice President of the Republic of Sierra Leone said the universal health and preparedness review serves as a holistic initiative that provides a comprehensive view of an emergency and preparedness and emergency are viewed within the context of dealing with universal health coverage. “The focus is essentially to aligning with critical gaps and prioritize kindly technical and financial supports leading to predictability, sustainability and resilient,” Honourable Vice President stated.
Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh noted that the universal health and preparedness review looked at how to response to emergencies and how to deliver healthcare services to people. “Our level of preparedness for pandemics is best rooted in the experience we had during the Ebola and COVID-19 pandemic,” Vice President said.
He added that at the first sight of the pandemic, His Excellency President Bio put together a presidential taskforce that was drawn from the civil societies, government and the private sector where he personally served as the torchbearer of the taskforce as a way of enhancing working layers of government level structure, scientific group committee and the operational arm which comprised of frontline workers otherwise National COVID-19 Response Team. VP Juldeh disclosed that healthcare services had been the fundamental piller of President Bio’s vision. He said the one of the critical elements of the reviews is country’s specific experiences that would better prepared for any future pandemic or outbreak; adding that the robust and resilient healthcare system could be the second critical elements in filling the gap of structural and functional health system.
He reaffirmed that healthcare financing has been another component that the review could look at for a successful and adequate healthcare system with a driving philosophy of building a bridge. VP urged that the government would continue to embark on infrastructural development, healthcare financing, robust babycare units, effective laboratory facilities, hospital on wheels project and more importantly the investment of government healthcare system.
Dr. Mike Ryan, Executive Director of World Health Organization felt honoured for sharing his experience in terms of healthcare service and work the community frontline workers are doing in Sierra Leone. He said the Universal Health and Preparedness Review is an opportunity for Sierra Leonean institutions to come together and reflect the gap being created overtime as well acknowledges the weakness of the people.
He believed that through the review many would consider of invest into the existing healthcare security that carries a national flavour for a country like Sierra Leone.
Dr. Lindiwe Makubalo, Assistant Director of World Health Organization in Africa said as a member of the state-led Universal Health and Preparedness Review, she felt opportune for being part of such milestone and this showed that there had been a strong and interconnected healthcare system in Sierra Leone. She emphasized that in order to have a better healthcare coverage there had to be an increasing preparedness of everybody. She appreciated Sierra Leone as a member of World Health Organization which pride herself for effective and collaborative work in footing the mission of the organization. Dr. Makubalo added that there are number of other programs that they are supporting Sierra Leone with prominent among them is the national tobacco and nicotine control and the implementation of national health account that would provide a base in financing it as well as a safe motherhood and reproductive assessment. She applauded the Government of Sierra Leone for the inevitable approach in terms of improving healthcare system and engaging in a construction health discussions. She thanked the Minister of Sierra Leone Dr. Austin Demby for making the event a success and for the partnership WHO has been enjoying.
