A one-day workshop for stakeholders in Kenema district for parliamentarians, councillors, chiefs and civil society members and other stakeholders in Kenema district has taken place at the Holy Trinity Parish in Kenema city.
The workshop was organized by the Medical Research Centre (MRC) in Bo and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) office in Kenema in order to talk with health stakeholders on decentralization of health activities in the district.
Giving the objectives of the meeting the project coordinator for national NGOs, Prince Cotay, said the current workshops that they were conducting in Tonkolili, Kenema, Bo and Kailahun districts were to assess how best the health services had been going on in the districts and to see how best they could collaborate and work as one unit in delivery health services across the districts.
Prince Cotay disclosed how MRC was funding the middle level health services personnel in and out of the country pursuing health services courses. “Currently ten people are at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria on courses,” he disclosed.
In his contribution the District Medical Officer (DMO), Dr Yankuba Madina Bah, said when the health situation in the district was becoming worse that brought about the NGOs to intervene in order to help the situation but said most of them where not working to their expectation.
He said they had staff who had been trained but were roaming about and that there were so many in the field who were not on pay roll.
Dr Bah revealed that the problem they had was that of doctors’ quarters but appealed to health workers to come to the district anyway to work.
The paramount chief of Dodo chiefdom who represented his colleagues in the district, Chief Kpakra, disclosed that in his chiefdom there were only one health centre with a nurse and a bed.
He called for the training of health staff from their localities because by so doing the health staff would go back to their localities to practice.
Chief Kpakra said his chiefdom was deprived of communication as none of the radio stations in kenema was being received there.