Anna Marriott reports from Sierra Leone, where campaigners’ efforts are making a real difference to people’s lives.
Today in Freetown, Sierra Leone, I met six women and five babies who would not have been alive if it was not for the new free health care policy launched in April of this year. That sounds dramatic, I agree, but it is absolutely true.
Last year UK campaigners in their thousands told the Prime Minister to make free health care a priority in poor countries. He did and as a result of the international campaign 6 developing countries announced new policies on free health care for their citizens. The President of Sierra Leone promised to make health care free for all pregnant and lactating women as well as children under five. With support from international aid, especially from the UK government, the President officially launched the free health care policy on 27th April 2010.
I had heard second-hand about the impact. That waiting rooms and labour wards once empty because women simply couldn’t afford to pay were now bursting at the seams. This rapid increase just showed how much of a barrier user fees were for these same women. It also showed that fees were playing such a critical role in keeping the maternal death rates so high.
Overwhelming impact
Today I had the privilege of seeing the impact with my own eyes. I was overwhelmed. I was taken to a post-op ward for women recovering from caesareans. Obstructed labour is one of the chief causes of deaths for mothers in Sierra Leone. In the past caesarean sections, the only solution, were simply too expensive for the majority of women. They were left to die. But in this ward six women were sleeping soundly in their beds with their babies next to them recovering from their ordeal. The woman closest to me had two tiny but perfect twins.
I was then taken to the premature baby ward. Incredible. The ward contained about 8 incubators and I was able to see 5 of the babies up close. The doctor told me that before free care was introduced the hospital didn’t even have incubators because they knew it was beyond the means of the mothers and their families to pay. He also told me that in nine years of working at that same hospital he had never known a premature baby survive.
As I left the hospital I mingled with several women in the early stages of their pregnancy clutching copies of their first scan. Antenatal care is also now free in Sierra Leone and the hope is that it will help detect any complications early enough to dramatically turn around the tragically high rate of maternal and neo-natal deaths in the country.
Campaigning making a real difference
If you were one of those campaigners who asked the Prime Minister to act, I really want you to know just how important your efforts were and continue to be. Campaigns like these make a real difference to real life people. Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world and the challenge of implementing this policy successfully for the long-term are very big.
But that is why we need a renewed effort to push the new UK government to make sure it takes the lead in promoting free health care internationally and provides the urgently needed aid to poor countries to implement it. The new UK government want results for their aid. I can guarantee from what I have seen with my own eyes today, free care brings real life results.
Tell the UK government: Mums matter
More about the difference that free healthcare is having in Sierra Leone
Tags: free healthcare, MDG, mums matter, Sierra Leone
HI Anna! Thanks so much for blogging this, it’s really moving to hear from you what a difference this policy has made. Thanks for sharing it and please keep them coming!
September 3rd, 2010 at 11.48 amthat’s a victory!we need more………
September 3rd, 2010 at 12.04 pmIts great so hear and see such wonderful things happening in Sierra Leone. With initiatives like these the MDGs are no longer a dream for developing countries but a possible reality with committed leadership and effective parnership.
Bravo !!!
September 6th, 2010 at 10.36 amI am sure this will take my country (Sierra Leone) to the level of excelence.
September 7th, 2010 at 4.38 pmit is a great opportunity to share effort, initiatives like these..thanks.
October 8th, 2010 at 6.27 amI am extremely happy that a developing country like Sierra Leone emerging from a civil war can have idel political will to have free health service for Pregrant Women .. May this model spread to other African countries so that health problem can be a thing of the past…. Bravo Sierra Leone
October 31st, 2010 at 8.16 am[...] hear from Sierra Leone. Its government stopped user fees for mothers and children in April and the results have been instant and dramatic. The WHO says that malaria treatment for children there has shot up 372% and the number of women [...]
December 8th, 2010 at 9.31 amGreat effort, all African leader need to take a leaf from this initiative. Uganda particularly should have their presidential candidates include this in their manifestos
January 5th, 2011 at 3.18 pm[...] hear from Sierra Leone. Its government stopped user fees for mothers and children in April and theresults have been instant and dramatic. The WHO says that malaria treatment for children there has shot up 372% and the number of women [...]
January 11th, 2011 at 2.02 pm