When we visited earlier in the year we were very pleased to be welcomed as a team to the Children's Hospital in Freetown. But the important visitors I am writing about were not us!
Since April 2010 when the free health initiative was introduced, the results have been amazing. It is reported that in the first month, antenatal clinics in Freetown saw seven times more women than they had before and 179 per cent more children visited health centres.
A hospital doctor, Dr David Baion, has said that since health care was free the number of children dying on the wards has actually halved. This was because people were presenting themselves quicker. They were coming to the hospital when still treatable. In our Community Healthcare teaching we were asked to emphasise the importance of taking children early for treatment.
We were welcomed and shown around by Dr. Fred Martineau, who works at the hospital as part of the Welbodi Partnership team. Welbodi is the Krio word for Health and the Partnership, which has its base in England, supports the provision of paediatric care in Sierra Leone and helps the Ola During Children's Hospital deliver quality services to its patients.
They do this by working in collaboration with the hospital management and staff and with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation to identify priorities and develop solutions. The work began in Sierra Leone in 2007.
Fred is a trainee paediatrician from the UK who is volunteering in Sierra Leone from 2010-2011. In addition to clinical work in multi-ethnic communities in Bristol and East London, he has worked with organisations supporting the health needs of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. He trained at Bristol University, has a BSc in International Health from UCL and a Diploma of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from Liverpool. He is a Member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
A home-made Triage sign in the entrance to the hospital. Triage is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition. This rations patient treatment efficiently when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately. In spite of the benefits of free health care, it is still impossible to treat everyone efficiently due to shortage of materials and of staff.
We were invited to give blood. There was not enough time for everyone to do so, and we were assured that the needles were sterile! Sarah and Sam volunteered.
And now the really important visitors. Princess Anne, the Princess Royal and her husband visited the hospital a couple of days ago and met some of the patients. I understand her visit has been prompted by the 50th Anniversary of Independence for the country.
Unlike us, she has also managed to visit the Mercy Ship which is still anchored in Freetown.
Ali, a volunteer nurse on the ship, has said "When she did arrive, Princess Anne was lovely. She met the two patients we had picked out for her, and then just kept right on going around that side of the ward and met all the rest of them, too. I got trapped in a corner, and so when she got around to the lady in Bed Twelve, I was the one the princess turned to when she asked about the patient's surgery.
I got to talk to the princess, bright blue scrubs and all. I've done come crazy things here on this ship, but explaining oro-nasal fistula surgery to the daughter of the Queen of England? That's right up there with the rest of them."
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