By Chernor Alimamy Kamara
Journalists and social media bloggers from across the country have pledged to intensify cooperation with the Ministry of Health to facilitate the successful rolling out of the ministry’s new approach to healthcare delivery in Sierra Leone.
The commitment came at the end of the first-ever town hall meeting between the ministry and media workers held at Family Kingdom in Freetown on Monday, June 24, 2024.
The minister of health addressed the journalists on the many projects now being implemented in his ministry as explained in a document setting out the “framework for the people-centered life stages approach to health care delivery.” In his forward to that document, the minister said his ministry is set to institutionalize life stages approaches in the public health system with a broader aim of preventing diseases and reducing disease burden on individuals, households, community, and the health system by addressing services delivery at all stages of life.
Dr. Austin Demby said this will help in significantly reducing morbidity and mortality from both communicable and non-communicable diseases. “This will require that the life stages approaches are meticulously applied in policy formulation, programming, planning, implementation, and service delivery,” he said.
He noted that the life stages approach ensures that the health needs of individuals are addressed throughout the individual’s life course and that holistic care is provided to an individual, being cognizant that the care being given at a point in time will determine their health not only at that moment but throughout all the stages of their life.
The Minister stated that the course approach emphasizes addressing early “upstream” determinants of health to change personalized trajectories positively. He added that “this asserts that vulnerabilities in later life stages can be reduced by the care given to an individual at earlier stages.”
He said that there is overwhelming consensus among key stakeholders on the need to shift from disease-based programming to planning for the whole individual so that the health system can respond irrespective of the ailment that befalls the individual. He also said that the life stages approach seeks to provide holistic care for a client at one stop and therefore calls for the integration of services and mechanisms to ensure that all aspects of the patients’ needs are addressed.
“It also requires investment in primary care systems to provide health promotion, disease prevention, curative, rehabilitative, and palliative services to all life stages, leaving no one behind,” said Dr. Demby.
The health minister vowed that the government will prioritize the implementation of recommendations in the framework for the person-centered life stages approach to health service delivery as well as health system strengthening to ensure the delivery of quality healthcare services. He encouraged all stakeholders, including international development partners, to join hands with the Ministry of Health and fully align their investment strategies and support mechanisms to one national approach to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) through the life stages approach.
The journalists called on the ministry to conduct training programs targeting specialized forms of reporting to help them deal with critical issues in the sector. They also urged the ministry to ensure that information is released on time and that the website is regularly updated.
Copyright © 2024 Politico (26/06/24)
