St. John of God Catholic Hospital Mabesseneh
El Hno. Michael Koroma nos hace un resumen de las actividades de los tres centros de la Orden San Juan de Dios en Sierra Leona: El hospital de Mabesseneh/Lunsar; la Escuela de enfermería y la Clínica de Lungi. También agradece el apoyo que desde las respectivas Instituciones están recibiendo para poder seguir las actividades asistenciales y docentes de la Orden.
Michael M. Koroma
Dear All,
Let me take this short time to give you a summary of state of affairs of the three centres in Sierra Leone which are of interest to you all as our beloved partners.
The HOSPITAL
As I write, the state of the hospital is stable. The utilisation os the services by the population is on the positive trend despite the low income from many of the population. yet many are still reporting to the hospital though a small number still report late especially the children and pregnant women despite the total free cost of services funded by Apadrina, and Manos Unidas and Italian Episcopal Conference.
The hospital is seriously re-organising the Primary Health Care Unit and restrategising its activities to respond well to the needs presented and manage well the resources provided by donors to help the vulnerable ones through the trip arty agreement between Juan Ciudad, Africa Viva and the hospital. In this regard, Hospital Infantile, Barcelona has provided funds to support Nutrition programme for a year. The hospital has engaged a full time nutritionist competent to meet our expectations. Africa Viva foundation still continue to support the medical outreach and maternal health activities outside and inside the hospital.
The Laboratory support by Probates Foundation has come to an end. Recently, an evaluation was carried out by a consultant from Probites and we are yet to receive the official feedback report.
Foundation Heres from Spain, has subsidise the hospital with essential drug support for half a year budget and this has enabled the hospital cover recurrent expenses during this hard times especially the rainy season that has just started. We have resolved to increase a little the salary of all cadres of staff especially the low cadres receiving more than the senior cadres to help them meet with the drastic economic changes taking place currently in the country.
CUAAM organisation is still partnering with the hospital in the area of maternal inpatient services with funds provided from MANOS UNIDAS and ITALIAN EPISCOPAL Conference. This is helping many poor women. We are still working on how to promote the Women insurance scheme when the donor funding shall expire by 2020.
Generally, the staff are motivated despite the slowness of some but we are coping with this and trying to coach them as we get on.
Work is still going on to recruit a full time gynaecologist from Nigeria partly to be funded by Rome and Mr. Victor Bangura from the USA or from CUBA depending which one comes first. For the moment, there is urgent need of a doctor not specifically a surgeon but one who can reposed to acute emergency surgeries as one of our doctors is returning home in Congo to attend to his family and further studies by July ending. This doctor was responding to all gynaecological needs of the hospital and thanks to funding from Mr. Victor Bangura, we were able to sustain him with a good salary.
The NURSING SCHOOL
The 9th Group of SECHN students have just written their national licensure exams last week. The SRN students 1st and 2nd group of 68 students are currently going through their end of 2nd and 4th semester examination by 7 July. All students will break for holiday for 2 weeks and report to their various hospitals for clinical experience from July 25 until September 23rd, 2018. We have enrolled the 3rd set of SRN students and have started lectures since June 25, 2018 for 9 weeks and they will take a screening pre nursing exams before proceeding to year to commence the SRN programme training.
The 10th group of SECHN have completed their 20 weeks Midwifery module and are going for their 6 weeks special nursing areas clinical experience in freetown. The government has not yet announced recruitment for the Nurse Midwife Technician programme.
The Nursing school has been inspected and accredited by the National Tertiary Education Commission for Sierra Leone which empowers the school to be affiliated with any University for the award of an academic diploma and run future other academic programmes. This is an opportunity for us to open new programs like dentistry, theatre nursing, etc. We have also approached the University of Makeni to seek affiliation in order for our school to be transformed as a campus as their university do not have the department to qualify our school for affiliation with them. And it is of an advantage for us to align with a Catholic University instead of public. The modalities will start soon and your advice will be solicited with regards to the terms and conditions.
The Government of Sierra Leone is working closely with the school and is interested in the development of the school and appreciate the progress made so far.
Our partners Doscent Campus in Barcelona continue to supervise the activities and performance of the school more closely and source funds to support capital investment needs to strengthen and improve the learning conditions of the students.
The staff are also working hard and are awaiting the arrival of our colleagues from Barcelona for the seminars and other activities to do together during this break July to September, 2018.
Internet services are available now 24 hours in the school if there is electricity. We are grateful to the funding support of La Caixa with has subsidised hugely the economic activities of the school as there has been a drastic drop in student enrolment the past two years as the government stopped the training of SECHN.
Work is ongoing for the installation of the new solar system donated by EKI foundation in Spain. The shipment has been done and the vessel has departed from Spain yesterday. We have started the process of seeking clearing duty free waiving from the government of Sierra Leone. It is not going to be easy as the government has banned all duty waiving.
THE CLINIC IN LUNGI
The Clinic in Lungi
The state of the clinic too is quite stable. The utilisation of services there is average. We have relationship with insurance companies that send their client. Quality is acceptable there. The hospital is supervising closely the services there. It is difficult for medical officers to carry out consultations there so as to help reduce the distance for our clients. We still need to engage our visiting doctors on this.
Generally, we are all engaged fully in our activities.
Thank you all for your continue support.
Regards
—
Michael M. Koroma
(FAWCN, MScN, BSc(Hons)N, RGN.)
Chairman
St. John of God Catholic Health & Social Services Sierra Leone & Liberia
Sierra Leone 