In his opening speech to community advocates, the Mayor of the Bonthe Municipality committed to facilitating the supply of electricity tothe Bonthe Government hospital in 48 hours. He kept his promise.
In his opening speech during an engagement session with 50 Community Advocacy Group (CAG) in Bonthe Island, the Mayor, of the Bonthe Municipality, committed that in 48 hours, he will facilitate the supply of electricity in the Bonthe Government hospital and he kept to his promise. MamaYe engagement with communities, gives an opportunity to the public to get facts and figures on maternal and newborn health situation in their locations and the country as a whole. One of which is the dissemination of the Facility Improvement Team (FIT) assessment conducted in selected health facilities, country wide ensuring that Basic Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care and Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care facilities are in compliance with the seven enablers (water and sanitation, electricity, referrals, equipment for special procedures, blood storage and laboratory, staffing and drugs and supplies)In the Bonthe district, Advocates/Activists - Community Advocacy Group (CAG) initially trained by UNFPA in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs and who have also received Community Health Workers training from the World Vision Sierra Leone are ready to act for change in Bonthe Island. Mamaye in collaboration with Messianic Ambassadors for Africa (MAFA) and the Bonthe District Health Management Team (DHMT) engaged CAGs to better equip them with information/data and advocacy skills to hold decision makers into account and to better mobilise their communities for change. Amongst participants were MCH Aides who are supervising the work of the CAGs, MAFA staff and the Health Committee chairperson of Bonthe city Council.In their perception, the Bonthe Island is receiving limited attention from the Government and its partners to improving health outcomes and participants were able to identify some of the burning health challenges with staff and referral systems within the district. They commended World Vision for their outstanding community health development projects and appreciated Mamaye’s timely intervention but also look forward to having other health agencies, if improved and sustainable health outcomes are to be realized. During the Mamaye engagement session with the CAGs, results from the FIT assessment were disseminated and the gaps identified in health facilities were confirmed by the Maternal and Child Health Nurses that those were true pictures of their health facilities. In the discussion, on how to make the situation better, participants developed an action plan by the end of the session and among those was to have an engagement with parliamentarians in the Bonthe district to prioritize their support for quality health care services and participants were amazed and appreciated the Mayor for his immediate commitment to having power supply in the Hospital as an action and being the change to making their clinic safe. At the closing, the Mayor applauded participants for their commitment to act as change agents for health in their communities, he mentioned “you should hold me into account by asking me questions on things that are going wrong and if the solution is beyond me, I will take it to the next level”. Meanwhile, the Bonthe Government hospital is enjoying electricity supply!