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5 Efforts to Improve Health Care In Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone Health Care
Access to quality health care in Sierra Leone has been an ongoing struggle for many people in the country due in part to a history of war and conflict. Poor living conditions also have an impact on the percentage of the population with access to essential, life-saving health care services. Of note, in Sierra Leone, 73 percent of rural citizens live in poverty. Fortunately, both local and international powers are making attempts to change the status quo in order to create a more promising future for Sierra Leoneans. Keep reading to learn more about efforts to improve.

5 Ways Health Care is Improving in Sierra Leone

  1. In September 2017, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation proposed the National Health Sector Strategic Plan. The plan outlines how years after the Ebola outbreak of 2014, the disease still impacts survivors’ daily lives. The Ministry of Health and Sanitation proposes a long-term recovery plan to last until 2021. The proposal states its vision of “A well-functioning national health system that delivers efficient and high-quality healthcare and ultimately contributes to the socio-economic development of the country. This care must be of high quality, accessible, affordable and equitable to all Sierra Leoneans.”

  2. In 2017, the International Organization for Migration began the Strengthening Sierra Leonean National Health Care Capacity through Diaspora Engagement project. This project connects health care professionals in Sierra Leone with residents in rural areas, providing them with free health care assistance. Over 1,000 people living in the Moyamba District benefited from it because it provided surgeries, dental care and examinations to those who needed them. Although the project lasted for only two years, ending in March 2019, a new Mobile Health Clinics campaign began shortly afterward in May 2019 in association with the Sierra Leonean Ministry of Health calling to continue to serve those in need of health care in rural towns.

  3. In March 2019, The United Nations Development Programme distributed 15 vehicles to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Because the country has many roads and other areas that are difficult to travel on foot, the vehicles allow people to deliver health care supplies to those in need more safely and quickly. The United Nations also trained Sierra Leoneanese, including 360 women, in the management of the Health and Sanitation facility. “Health-related issues shouldn’t be restricted to one agency,” said the UNDP’s Resident Coordinator, “there should concerted efforts from all stakeholders. Development starts with healthy people.”

  4. According to the World Health Organization, hand hygiene has served as a major issue within the country. Many people in Sierra Leone do not have access to clean water to wash their hands, which aids in the spread of diseases. In response to this and to support World Hand Hygiene Day each May, Sierra Leone now has handwashing stations near hospitals. WHO has also held events educating locals about the importance of handwashing to keep both individuals and communities disease-free.

  5. In September 2019, Sierra Leone’s government opened Rokupa Hospital in Western Urban District, Freetown, aiming to improve health care services for women and children. An estimated one in 17 women in the country dies due to complications from childbirth and the facility aims to provide women with access to better maternal health care. The hospital has added 4,000 new health care staff and increased the financial investment for health services by 2.1 percent. On top of the Sierra Leoneans government, the U.K. government and the United Nations Population Fund also funded the construction of the new facility.

Sierra Leone may have a long way to go to improve its health care, but its significant progress is impressive. With increased efforts, the country should be able to provide even better care in the future.

– A. O’Shea
Photo: Unspash

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Community Healing Dialogues in Sierra Leone

Community Healing Dialogues in Sierra Leone
There are historical misunderstandings and under-investments in social care for people with mental health problems. This is even more prevalent among people living in poor countries like Sierra Leone. People in Sierra Leone do not treat mental health as seriously as other physical health disabilities. Sierra Leone has a population of more than 7 million people and there are only two psychiatrists, two clinical psychologists and 19 mental health nurses. There are also only four nurses that have specialization in child and adolescent mental health. With a clear need for psychological professional help, there has been a rise in community healing dialogues in Sierra Leone.

Mental Health in Koindu

Like many towns in Sierra Leone, Koindu struggled after the Ebola epidemic. Some say that mental disorders and anxiety affected many citizens even after the virus outbreak. Koindu citizens go through similar psychological effects as war veterans.

After experiencing stigmatization and discrimination from within their communities, many survivors of the Ebola outbreak became stressed which increased mental health problems. Koindu’s community suffered distress with only a few mental health providers and little information about psychological pain. The USAID Advancing Partners & Communities project initiated community healing dialogues (CHDs) to provide care to the people.

Community Healing Dialogues (CHDs)

Trained facilitators lead the community healing dialogues. They unite the community members together to vent their concerns and come up with ways to solve them. The success of community healing dialogues in Sierra Leone is raising awareness about serious problems affecting group members. Community members are discussing economic and livelihood challenges as a group, and creating solutions. People, who formerly discriminated against Ebola survivors, are now accepting them back into their communities.

Once a week, the CHDs gather between 15 to 18 community members to talk about and promote the mental health issues in their communities. There are at least two social workers and two nurses per district to organize and facilitate Community Healing Dialogues. More than 705 community members in 45 communities benefit from this psychosocial care. Depending on the situation, people refer some members to higher-level mental health services.

Higher-Level Program Aid

The World Health Organization (WHO) developed the mental health gap action program (mhGAP) to provide more specialized services. The program trains higher-level health care workers and medical doctors around the country. The workers and professionals use procedures within the program to identify and diagnose possible treatment options for mental disorders.

The African region is widely using mhGAP. It is pursuing professionals who may provide more specialized care at the local recommended hospitals; Kissy Psychiatric National Referral Hospital, Connaught Hospital and Ola During Children’s Hospital. The WHO is collaborating with other partners within the Ministry of Health and Sanitation to provide technical support to continue strengthening mental health services.

There is now a better understanding and acceptance of how to treat mental health within the country. Advanced care solutions along with the community healing dialogues in Sierra Leone are improving the quality of care for the people in need of help.

– Francisco Benitez
Photo: Flickr

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Addressing Mental Health in Sierra Leone

Mental health in Sierra LeoneSierra Leone is a West African country bordered by the North Atlantic Ocean. It is an impoverished country with almost half of the working-age population involved in subsistence agriculture. Between 1991 and 2002, Sierra Leone was subject to a civil war that resulted in more than 50,000 deaths. Sierra Leone also experienced a harsh Ebola outbreak in 2014 that outclassed all others. Its citizens are still recovering from these events, which have resulted in years of physical and emotional pain. This has left hundreds of thousands of people plagued with mental health issues in Sierra Leone.

Mental Health in Sierra Leone

The World Health Organization approximates that 10 percent of Sierra Leone citizens are facing mental health problems. This number may be even higher when taking into account cases that have not been officially reported. “[D]aily hardships and misery can turn into what scientists call “toxic stress” and trigger or amplify mental health problems” as a result of living in extreme poverty. For a long time, there was a lack of political support for mental health in Sierra Leone.

Resources are a big problem when tackling the issue of mental health in Sierra Leone. There are only “two psychiatrists, two Clinical Psychologists and 19 Mental Health Nurses” in a country of seven million people. Furthermore, only four nurses are trained to work with children with mental health issues. Due to the absence of support, many citizens seek out help from the traditional healers available.

Many individuals and organizations are working together with the goal of improving mental health in Sierra Leone. Two organizations that have made significant efforts and progress in raising awareness or providing direct aid to mental health services are the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Both WHO and MOHS have worked together on projects that have greatly improved support for mental health in Sierra Leone.

The Ministry of Health and Sanitation

Most of those infected or family to those infected during the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak experienced trauma. Patients were often isolated from loved ones and surrounded by strangers. People had to cope with the death of family members and friends. Survivors of EVD beat the virus, but they still experienced toxic stress, depression, insomnia and anxiety. MOHS developed a plan for providing mental health services by improving community awareness, building demand for services and improving access to specialized healthcare workers at all levels of care.

The MOHS worked with the Advancing Partners program on a two-year project funded and managed by USAID’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health and implemented by JSI. In Sierra Leone specifically, MOHS’s framework is being used to aid Sierra Leone’s government with the implementation of health service in post-Ebola recovery. The program is improving mental health awareness in the community, training healthcare workers with the skills to provide high-quality care and reinforcing mental health governance.

So far, MOHS and Advancing Partners have created community healing dialogue (CHD) groups. The groups help communities by providing coping mechanisms, finding resources and offering support for those with psychosocial issues. These groups are placed in areas with a large amount of EVD survivors and trained mental health staff. The CHD groups have “reached almost 700 people in 40 communities across the six districts most affected by the Ebola outbreak (Bombali, Port Loko, Kailahun, Kenema, and Western Areas Rural and Urban).”

The World Health Organization

The World Health Organization is focused on training healthcare workers in Psychological First Aid and the identification of distress. WHO developed the mental health gap action programme (mhGAP) to train community health workers and medical doctors in Sierra Leone. This way, healthcare workers will be able to more easily identify mental disorders and discover treatment options. WHO wanted to create an approach that aims to support mid-level and higher level healthcare workers to provide better tailored services.

Sierra Leone was previously a country where mental health needs were not addressed. The country continues to be impoverished since a large part of its population is unemployed. It experienced devastating losses in its 11-year-long civil war and was further distressed by the severe Ebola outbreak in 2014. The country has a large amount of people still suffering from past issues. That suffering went untreated for a long time. However, organizations like the WHO and MOHS have made considerable progress in addressing the mental health in Sierra Leone.

– Jade Thompson
Photo: Flickr