By Umaru Fofana
Any keen observer might be tempted into thinking that by the headline I am bothered by a strange decision of President Ernest Bai Koroma and his government. For some reason the incredible role played by the local media in the fight against Ebola did not get a recognition by the president and his government as manifested in their decision to not even invite the President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) to the Ebola Awards in December, let alone award the association.
I am not bothered by it for many reasons including the fact that even a child born in early 2014 - before the onset of the Ebola outbreak - knows how SLAJ and the Independent Radio Network (IRN) helped minimise ignorance - a key challenge in the fight against the virus. I am, of course, on record as saying that I will never accept an award from my country’s government - which I am reporting on and by the nature of my job, holding to account. Therefore I do not believe in journalists looking forward to an award from their government. It compromises!
What is probably more important in this situation is that the World Health Organisation recognised the role of the local media through SLAJ, with the country representative of the global health agency saying so unambiguously at the official declaration of the end of the outbreak on 7 November 2015, and even prescribing a future role for them in the fight.
Now, what bothers me though is this: I have wondered why the head of the medical wing of the Republic of the Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF) was not promoted to a Brigadier. Or why those other military personnel who worked as doctors and nurses and other caregivers at their miracle-performing PTS 1 and 2 were also not promoted.
Let me deal with the issue of Col Sahr Foday for a start. He was the lead doctor in the army’s response to the Ebola outbreak as the head of the medical wing. Let us even for a moment discount the role he played in that fight, an army that now has a Lieutenant General - we can argue about the necessity of that some other day - cannot afford to have a head of its specialised wing like the medic who is below the rank of a Brigadier General. But when you add the role played by this man in the Ebola fight, the breath that responded to the declaration of the end of the outbreak should have been followed by him being promoted to a Brigadier. I respect all our health workers in the outbreak - none more so than our soldiers.
Now I understand that some of the military doctors and nurses will soon be promoted. These are general promotions, I understand, which are due by virtue of the length of service in the army of those beneficiaries. Even Dr Songu-Mbriwa who contracted Ebola on the frontline and recovered was not promoted by the singular virtue of that Ebola fight he risked so much for.
I covered the Ebola outbreak extensively - at the risk of sounding immodest perhaps more than any other journalist in the world did. During that coverage, I saw the military health workers at treatment centre at the 34 Military Hospital, in addition to those at PTS 1 and 2. It is no joke - nor can it be overemphasised - these men and women saved lives that would have been lost. And all they had were some of the most basic resources.
I know for sure that the short span memory of the average Sierra Leone will forget their sacrifices very soon - if not already. After all are we not busy vilifying some of those good soldiers who fought the rebels in the 1990s and exalting those who sold out simply based on apparent partisan politics? Are we not speaking evil of the civil defence forces who sacrificed everything to let us keep everything? Did we not sack some of those brave fighters and label them “chronically ill and mentally imbalance”? How can we not forget about these gallant men and women who risked it all in the face of Ebola.
I learned with joy early this week about the discharge on Friday of the last known Ebola patient in Sierra Leone. Yes we have been here before and the outbreak was subsequently declared ended. This is nevertheless a feat worthy of celebrating. When that women, Memunatu Kalokoh, got infected in Magburaka by her niece who died on 12 January this year, she had to be brought down to the 34 Military Hospital in Freetown. A sign that we had learned nothing and we were back to how it all got out of hand in 2014. In a fashion smacking of strategic genius, the army had not dismantled their own treatment centre in Freetown or at least had kept one of them which they say will remain open for the foreseeable future.
In stead of all that eating and feasting and awarding politicians whose frailty and inertia brought us to the reason for those awards, on a budget we may never know, attention should have been focused on another true Ebola award. The payment of the $ 5,000 promised the families of those health workers who succumbed to the virus is still being awaited. Despite all the glowing tributes President Koroma paid to those fallen heroes it is disturbing that the bereaved families of most of them are living under reduced circumstances and have not been paid the much awaited money. And if you doubted it when I said that we would still go back to our old ways and forget about the sacrifices of our soldier medics, you need no more illustrative evidence of that. What, I wonder, is the problem with promoting those soldiers and paying those bereaved families the promised money which is a paltry amount relative to the sacrifices they made!
May be like me, all other SLAJ members should not be bothered by the apparent snub of not having been invited for recognition. It’s been done to people who perhaps did a lot more than the local media did and were at far higher risk.
(C) Politico 10/02/16
