Why are we there?
- Endemic/epidemic disease
- Healthcare exclusion
Latest Links
- Sierra Leone: Improving healthcare for women and children
- West Africa: cholera surges in Sierra Leone and Guinea
- Sierra Leone: a day of saving lives with ambulance driver, Paul Sefoi
Historical
Latest Activity Report (2011)
A decade after the end of the civil war, Sierra Leone is still recovering. Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is working to improve maternal and child health.
Obstetric and paediatric care
At the Gondama referral centre, a 200-bed hospital outside Bo, the second-largest city in the country, MSF offers specialist obstetric and paediatric care. Staff at the centre tended to more than 8,700 children in 2011, and assisted over 1,300 births, 723 of which were by caesarean section.
MSF also treated more than 1,600 children with severe malnutrition at its nutrition programme at Gondama. Severely malnourished children with medical complications were referred to Bo government hospital, where an MSF nurse supports the centre’s staff.
The network of community malaria volunteers, who diagnose and treat simple cases of malaria among their neighbours, was not as large as in previous years.
The MSF team continues to support the network, while refocusing its malaria activities towards the provision of specialist treatment at Gondama.
An MSF doctor examines a malnourished child at the Gondama Referral Centre, Bo. © Juan Carlos Tomasi
Local healthcare
An outreach team supports five community health centres in Bo district. Staff offer basic healthcare, antenatal care and treatment for malnutrition and malaria, and carry out health promotion activities.
A lack of qualified health staff and inadequate health facilities mean that people in need of specialist medical assistance often do not get hospital treatment until the very late stages of their illness or pregnancy.
MSF operates an ambulance service to help people reach the hospital more quickly. Three ambulances are on standby 24 hours a day at health centres around the district to transport people free of charge to Gondama. People with more complicated conditions are referred to the capital Freetown.
Lassa fever
Lassa fever is a viral haemorrhagic fever that occurs in west Africa. It is an acute illness that affects several organs in the body, including the liver, spleen and kidneys. Sierra Leone has a specialist ward for Lassa patients at Kenema hospital, 300 kilometres east of Freetown. MSF operates an ambulance to transport people with Lassa fever to Kenema.
At the end of 2011, MSF had 484 staff in Sierra Leone. MSF has worked in the country since 1986.
MSF story
Philip de Almeida, 63 years old, MSF surgeon
Philip has been working with MSF for 10 years, and is one of three obstetricians at MSF’s Gondama referral centre.
“The maternal mortality rate in Sierra Leone is one of the highest in the world. Many pregnant women come to us in a critical condition because of the lack of transport and education, and many live in very remote areas. We obstetricians are on call for 24 hours, and sleep overnight in the hospital.
“In 2010 our latest statistics showed that maternal mortality in our catchment area is down to 401 per 100,000 live births, while in the rest of the country it’s 970.”
