The Public Health National Emergency Operation Centre (PHNEOC) Communications Pillar has said that every death in the country must be reported so as to identify cause of death so that the Health Ministry will take all necessary steps to curb sicknesses and spread of viruses.
In the usual Monday working meeting, the head of the Communications Pillar Mr Harold Thomas said PHNOEC has been working with partners on how they can make death reporting mandatory even though it is a law, but it has not been the practice in many areas of the country.
During the ebola crisis, mandatory swabbing was one of the main tools used in the fight against and to maintain resilient zero in Sierra Leone. This epidemic, which was the largest Ebola outbreak in the history of mankind, resulted in over 8,000 cases and over 3400 deaths in the country.
Having the 117 and other means of communicating suspicious live and death cases from the public contributed largely for ending the epidemic in 2015.
Mr Thomas said it is because of that success they want to make use of 117 again so that people will be able to report these deaths that will be registered and also have the cause to work on. “We cannot over emphasize the benefits of the 117 help line to both citizens and the nation as a whole during the ebola and the death reporting we are on now.”
In line with the President’s directive to end mandatory swabbing on the 30th of June, 2016, some changes were made for the post June, 2016 swabbing policy. The new policy emphasizes on identifying suspicious death in communities and health facilities and swabbing and testing such cases for EVD.
This calls for identifying all deaths and for citizens to report all death to the health authorities for verification and investigations and if needed for swabbing. The major message to the public therefore is “Reporting all deaths in Sierra Leone and obtaining a death certificate as required by law.”
PHNEOC has proposed activities for a country wide ‘Death Reporting Awareness Raising Campaign’ and compliance to the law requiring reporting of all deaths.
The Communication Working Group of PHNOEC says reporting of deaths is critical in monitoring for infectious diseases and preventing outbreaks from turning into an epidemic like Ebola. The reason to report all deaths is to ensure the identification of any potential outbreak and be able to respond early enough to prevent the loss of many lives.
It is important to engage communities at all fronts more than ever before. Engagement using a two-way communications activity will ensure ownership of death reporting by the people and increasing death alerts for investigation.
Harold Thomas says many strategies will be adopted to reach out to community members throughout the country including meeting the people in their localities and engaging them in dialogues. This will enable us to include local priorities in messaging and positively affecting the general health of the people.
He said the activities will be done in collaboration with locally based religious leaders, local authorities, District Health Medical Teams, 117 Call Centre operators, Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHs) Births and Deaths offices and Health Education Units. “These will ensure key stakeholders take ownership of the Death Reporting system.”
Wednesday August 16, 2016
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