Health is Wealth Right?

Health is wealth. We hear this parable often. Health is wealth – this means literally, when a person or a people are healthy, they are able to be proactive in their life choices.  They can act, they can seek job employment; they are able to care for their homes, their families, their communities, and their country. We are now in the 53rd year of independence and I am forced to pause – to take a look at the beautiful landscape that makes Sierra Leone what it is. Its charm, its hills that keep your surprised, and the houses that holds history and tales of the future, the people who are alive and colorful in every cervix of our country. I am forced to pause, to wonder, just how healthy are we? What institutional polices protect our wellbeing? Why is that we are still spending less that $10 per capita on the well being of every Sierra Leonean citizen? As it stands (before the official 2013 Demographic Household Survey (DHS)) comes out, 5 women die everyday due to pregnancy related causes, that 1 Sierra Leonean newborn dies every 47 minutes. 8 days after we marking our 53rd year of independence, out of the 40 countries surveyed, WHO figures still ranks Sierra Leone as having one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates. How is it that we can throw these figures around and yet be passive in implementing tangible changes that will see to the increased survival of our mothers and babies? Guess what though, most of our mothers are between the ages of 14 – 21, our mothers are young women.  We are a young people (47% of Sierra Leoneans are under the age of 18), we are a young country and as a young woman, I must pause to reflect on just how much my country prioritizes my wellbeing.  In the past two months I have being heavily involved in a student4change mobile project that sees to 50 active youth from all corners of Freetown. These 50 + students, (including the student engagement leaders) inspire and spark many more questions than I have answers for. These students have not only being supported with telephones - where consistent messaging about the status of mothers and babies with a particular focus on safe water and good sanitation in health facilities is provided. We have also provided space for these students to better understand health investment on mothers and babies in Sierra Leone, to better understand that health issues like infection and disease that kills many women and newborns can easily be prevented if every health facility had access to piped water that is safe. These students know that out of every 5 women that die every day in this country, 1 can be SAVED just with safe water. I have seen these students become passionate about making change. They’ve mobilized 500 other students to call on decision makers to act on safe water in every health facility in Freetown. Yet I continue to pause, because these students question not only their decision makers, but also the agency inherent in communities to mobilize and ACT for change. Yet, the students quickly realize that community members would rather spend on ‘privatized’ health care than use their community clinics that do not always have basic service delivery commodities at hand.  I pause because they are passionate and keen to act for change, however they are beginning to understand that this is a slow process. Yet, we also know that it does not have to be this way if communities, local decision makers, high level decision makers and the collective pulse of all `Sierra Leoneans demand that health be a priority.’  We still say health is wealth – but do we know what that really means? For me it means that more people should be surviving because they can access a safe clinic, that more women are delivering in these safe clinics, that more spending per person happens –atnthe very least meets WHO standard of per capital spending of $54, that our mothers and babies are thoroughly enjoying the innovative and brilliant idea that is the Free Health Care Initiative (FHCI). We can only be independent as a country when we place building up the infrastructural well being of every Sierra Leonean, a healthy Sierra Leonean is a productive, active and inspired Sierra Leone who will become a powerful architecture in nation building beyond any of our wildest imagination. Do Not underestimate a healthy being. Health is Wealth. I want to be wealthy, so I DARE us all to begin acting on ensuring that more Sierra leoneans, especially our women, our young girls, our mothers and our babies are surviving during childbirth, if they are surviving in a safe clinic, we are all surviving. Pause.