He went on to inform AYV that by 2019, the free health care initiative will be further expanded to include school-going children. He added that already, we do have school health care for example the dental and eye care services for school children.
He lamented however that the services do not outreach to all the secondary and primary health care units across the country and so the drive of this government he said is to improve outreach and access to primary and secondary health care units by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation which is actually joining in the distribution of not only free health care drugs but family support entities distributing contraceptives. He said the ministry will also join in distributing IPCs like gloves, infection prevention control (IPC) agents and methods; adding that the ministry would further join in the distribution hospital beds, screens, autoclaves and other materials and equipment.
He lamented that what used to happen was that even though drugs and medical equipment was supplied there was not sufficient education and sensitization on what happens to the drugs afterwards; who the actual beneficiaries are and as a result, monitoring of the system was poor or inexistent, making allowance for corruption.
“So this time we would actually go and do major sensitization district by district for the paramount chiefs, the section chiefs, the MPs, the ward councilors, the teachers the reverend fathers, the pastors, the imams; everybody that are of influence in the community to know that these are the things the government is providing and this is the way to distribute them to the beneficiaries. We can’t just do it in Freetown. We’ll start soon after the rains and we will make a good job of it,” the Health Minister Dr. Wurie noted.
He went on to say that while his ministry is engaged in this, they are also looking at the clinical side and so “we are now going to look at the doctors and redefine their roles, and redistribute the doctors to the provinces, and we are also going to look at the other medical personnel like the midwives, the epidemiologists, and also redistribute them to the provinces and we intend by the end of this year for better health care service to start to improve in the communities.”
