Minister of Health and Sanitation, Dr. Austin Demby has expressed great hope for Universal Health Coverage on    Tuesday 18th June 2024 during the weekly press briefing organized by the Ministry of Information and Civic Education  at the Foreign Affairs Conference Hall Tower Hill in Freetown.
The Minister said government has secured funding for the construction of an-ultra modern hospital in Kerry Town. He pointed out that they secured twenty -five million dollars for the construction of Lumley- Regent Road Children’s Hospital but ended up using about sixteen million dollars and experienced a huge save from the earlier secured fund. He said his ministry has already secured another fifty million dollars fund for the Kerry Town Hospital Project.
The Minister said that such a vision has started by supporting a safer birth facility for pregnant women which role  is  to  ensure that babies become safe from diseases like malaria and the like.
He stated that Sierra Leone was a doing poorly in maternal mortality rate, but that has improved drastically from thirteen thousand to nine hundred which he said is a huge improvement.
Dr Demby  said that his ministry  would ensure a healthy space for women that will  also  be done for  young babies as well starting  with vaccination .
He narrated his ministry’s effort in curbing malaria through the distribution of five million bed nets and a promise to construct an emergency centre for both pregnant women and babies that will attract the funding of the World Bank, Global Fund and Government.
The Minister   emphasized on plans for  providing better health services through well trained  and equipped doctors and nurses that will cater for both babies and pregnant women.
He said eighty five percent of pregnant and young babies that live around five kilometer of each community has better health care.
He said most of the hospitals were built for a small number of people living either in Freetown or other big towns whilst the population of these towns and cities have swollen in such a way that those hospitals can no longer accommodate these throng number of people, but to construct other hospitals that could help to accommodate these growing number, the reason for the construction of the Lumley-Regent Road Children’s Hospital.
He said the hospital has got the best doctors and nurses that were chosen from other hospitals a decision taken to build a solid health foundation in the newly constructed hospital.
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