December 2, 2016 By Emmanuel Okyne (Intern)
National Coordinator of the Network Movement for Democracy and Human Rights (NMDHR) has disclosed that his organization has secured funding from the Open Government Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) to monitor the implementation of the Free Healthcare in the Luawa, Kissi Teng, Kissi Tongi and Kissi Kama Chiefdoms, Kailahun district.
Dr. James Mathew told a presser yesterday in the conference room of their head office in Freetown that the project titled: “Community Monitoring for Accountable and Effective Service Delivery” would seek to compliment the efforts of government in providing quality and affordable free healthcare services to the citizens.
According to him, the government has made several laws and policies aimed at increasing access to good quality healthcare services for the poor.
He said the free healthcare policy targets children under-five, lactating mothers and pregnant women across the country because they were being marginalized and deprived of essential drugs and services, which he claimed were being smuggled to neighbouring countries.
He maintained that the project was not to witch-hunt anyone in the aforementioned chiefdoms but rather they were selected based on a baseline survey they conducted to ascertain their health needs.
Dr. Mathew said poor information and communication strategy of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation and weak supervision and monitoring were responsible for the poor delivery of drugs to the targeted groups.
The organization’s Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Nabieu Kamara said the mission of NMDHR was to promote human rights and good governance issues through advocacy, lobbying and campaign in order to change the mindset of the people.
He revealed that NMDHR signed a programme cooperation agreement with OSIWA to the tune of $81,490 for the implementation of the project, adding that 50 % of the funds had already been disbursed.
Kamara said the project would be implemented for 18 months in the targeted chiefdoms, and that forty monitors would be trained and deployed at PHUs in the district to monitor the free healthcare services.
“We will also be working closely with the paramount chiefs, youth and women organizations. We will love the people to take ownership of the project,” he said.