The Minister of Health (MoH), Dr. Austin Demby, and his team today visited the new Children’s Hospital under construction at Lumley in Freetown. The site visit was for the Minister to see the progress made with the facility and to get a clear idea of possible timeline for completion and handing over.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Austin Demby in the middle, and his two deputies pose for photo with some workers at the construction site of the new Lumley Children’s Hospital.
The 250-bed pediatric center of excellence will be furnished with state-of-the-art equipment. The hospital, which is set to be launched by President Bio in a couple of months’ time, will benefit over 55000 catchment communities within Lumley and its environs with over 100 babies being treated per day. It also promises to be the best children’s facility within the Africa sub-region.
Addressing workers at the construction site, the Minister said; “This is a legacy project and we must ensure that it is delivered with high quality and in time.”
The Minister and his team had a conducted tour of the facility under construction and got a sense of how soon it will be completed.
President Bio, through the Ministry of Health, is determined to transform the country’s health sector and infrastructure is a critical component to achieving that transformation. In addition to the construction of physical structures, the President, through MoH, has made a commitment to go green in the health sector by solarizing all health facilities.
Last month, 6 government hospitals, including Kabala, Kambia, Ola During and PCMH among others, were commissioned after being fully electrified with 24hrs solar energy. In addition to the 6 completed government hospitals, funding is now available to solarize 11 more.
Some of the workers are busy at work at the Lumley Children’s Hospital in Freetown
The new children’s hospital is one of several health facilities that are being constructed around the country. On Friday, the Minister will start the official opening of a number of completed peripheral health units (PHUs) across multiple locations around the country. In the eastern regional district of Kono, MoH, together with its partner, Partners In Health (PIH), is on the verge of completing a new maternal center of excellence, which is set to provide high-quality maternal and child health care to mothers in the district and beyond. It is hoped that the facility will serve as a hub for innovation in maternal health in Sierra Leone to be replicated within the Africa sub-region.
For the Minister, maternal and child health should be treated as a matter of urgency. That is why he has declared it “a public health emergency that needs a similar response to that of Ebola and Covid.” Already, Sierra Leone has made tremendous progress in reducing maternal mortality and is rated among the best within the region. In just two years, the country has stemmed maternal deaths from 717 out of 100,000 live births to 443 and the goal is to reduce this to less than 300 by 2025.
A partial view of the facility under construction with the Minister and his Deputy 2 looking at workers at the site.
It is hoped that the Lumley pediatric center of excellence, along with the many other facilities being constructed, will help Sierra Leone achieve its ambitious goal of addressing maternal and child deaths in the near future.