By Septimus Senessie in Kono.
Two health workers attached to the newly rehabilitated Basic Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care Center (BEMOC) in Kono District have criticised the facilities describing them as “a waste of donor resources.”
Florence Jattu Lansana, a mid-wife at BEMOC, Kombayendeh in Lei Chiefdom and Albert Ngomba, a community health nurse at Kayima Town, Sandor Chiefdom said the facilities were substandard.
She said the centre in Kombayendeh could best be described a peripheral health unit and not an obstetric and neonatal care centre because the facility lacked basic facilities like water supply, staff quarters, electricity supply and a cooling system.
Madam Lansana added that only two beds were at the postnatal room and two couches at the labour room for the growing numbers of pregnant women going to the center for medical attention. She said that each day they would attend to about 60 patients especially the beneficiaries of the free health care initiative. She said despite the facility being situated in the Lei Chiefdom, it was serving four additional chiefdoms, adding that patients' visits from those chiefdoms were putting pressure on their drugs at the center, which she said often led to frequent shortages.
She has threatened to abandon the center – about 45 miles from the district referral hospital in Koidu – if equipment to upgrade the facility to an obstetric and neonatal care center status was not made available by the concerned authorities.
Ngomba, a CHO attached to the other centre in Kayima expressed similar concerns about the facility.
Earlier, the District Medical Officer (DMO), Dr. Francs Jayah had also criticised the two newly-rehabilitated centers by the Kono District Council as substandard.
The chairman of the Kono District Council, Richard Abdulraman Koniga has dismissed the criticism as malicious, adding that he was confident of having done the right job. He said all that was left was the handing-over ceremony of the two facilities to their respective communities.
According to the procurement officer at the Kono District Council, Komba Lionel Boima, the Le 272 million rehabilitation projects were funded by the Decentralisation Service Delivery Project (DSDP). He said they had done what they were required to do as a council. He pointed out that facilities like beds and beddings, cooling system among others were not captured in the budget.
(C) Politico 21/11/13
