Background Information
The provision of an effective and sound health care is the right of every individual but lack of qualified medical doctors,lack of quality infrastructure and non- access to basic medecines and medical facilities,lack of awareness to hygiene and sanitation,,high poverty rates are among the various factors that are hampering the accessibility of sound health care facilities to the rural people of Port Loko district and even beyond.
We must admit that although some health care programs have been managed by the Government but the success and effectiveness have been wanting due to gaps in the implementation process.
Provision of an effective and robust health care system has been one of the biggest challenges facing the Government of Sierra Leone today.
Research studies have indicated that more than 60% of the population in Port Loko district live in rural areas with deplorable health care facilities,mortality rates due to chronic diseases are high and gruesome road accidents around the Port loko axis are increasing exponentially coupled with high poverty rates, have collectively compounded the issue.
Our Objectives
Our objective is to improve and enhance the services offered by Primary Health Centers in the rural communities of Port Loko. We propose to do this by applying innovative solutions that take advantage of developments in harnessing energy power, computers, and information technology. Our strategy is to use technology to provide effective early medical intervention, deliver expert health care, and minimize the inconvenience caused to patients and health-workers from poor logistics and long travel time. An equally important role of our health care facility is to provide health education emphasizing family planning, hygiene, sanitation, and prevention of communicable diseases.
SUPPORT THIS PROJECT
With the aforementioned reasons the executive of Afro-Dutch in collaboration with the elders and local community members of the Port Loko district have deemed it fit to provide a Healthcare facility that will address some of these burning issues.
It is our intention to make available sound , effective and affordable health care facilities to all rural people in the Port Loko axis and to any Sierra Leonean when the need arises.
Port Loko district is in the Northern Province, and is the fourth most populous district in the country. Port Loko borders the Western Area to the west, Kambia district to the North, Bombali district to the East and Tonkolili district to the South. The 11 chiefdoms of the district are Bureh Kasseh Makonteh (BKM), Buya Romende, Dibia, Kaffu Bullom, Koya, Lokomasama, Maforki, Marampa, Masimera, Sanda Magbolontor, and Tinkatupa Makonteh Safroko (TMS). Lunsar is the district’s largest Town, and other major towns are Masiaka,, Lungi, Gbinti and Port Loko town. .
The town had a population 21,961 in the 2004 census [1] and current estimate of 23,915 Port Loko lies approximately 45 miles east of Freetown. The area in and around Port Loko is a major bauxite and trade center. The town lies on the highway linking Freetown to Guinea’s Capital Conakry. . It also lies on the over-land highway between Freetown and its major airport – Lungi international airport.
Port loko district undeniably serves as a major hub and gateway to Guinea, Europe and more importantly serves as an alternate route to the country for those who will want to avoid using the Ferry to Freetown. The district occupies a strategic socio-economic and geo-political vantage position in the country as a whole.
Therefore, it can be surmised that Port Loko district is a commercial and industrial district with and an ever increasing number of vehicles regularly plying its roads. It is therefore, salient to note that the probability of road accidents will be on the increase.
According to recent statistics approximately 40% of the road accidents in the country occur around the Port Loko district axis.
Against this background, the provision of an ón the spot’’ health care facility to cater for the victims of unavoidable accidents and the poor rural people cannot be over-emphasized.
Our long-term goal
Our long-term goal of will be to provide effective health care to the poor people from rural communities. Many of the health centers in our country have been failing for a variety of reasons that include lack of decent facilities, equipment for performing even simple laboratory tests, etc. Even more important is a social reality: there just are not enough trained and qualified doctors to adequately serve the entire urban and rural populations of Sierra Leone.
Our main aim is to provide adequate medical equipments,adequate medicines,enough trained nurses and doctors to address this issue.
It is our intention to create a 24/7 hotline and adequate ambulances to respond to the needs of the poor rural people in the Por Loko axis and even beyond.
The result of non-functioning health care facility has been that, in many cases, diseases are not diagnosed in their early stages nor treated. The rural population has to often travel to urban areas when they can no longer bear the suffering caused by the disease, thus increasing the load on hospitals in urban areas and ending up with serious complications that, in many cases, could have easily been treated at their early stages. The need to rectify this problem has become critical especially given the fact that over a large percentage of the people live in rural areas across the country with poor awareness of health issues. This ignorance, coupled with the increased mobility between rural and urban areas, has led to an explosive increase in the spread of diseases of various nature.
Our aim is to provide an efficient diagnostic center and help reduce the burden on the poor rural people from traveling long and tedious journeys.
Project Management
The project will be administered by two committees:
- Committee of executives….comprising of members of the executive branch of Afro-Dutch Stichting.
- Committee of local Elders of Port Loko District that will liase with the executive branch of The Afro-Dutch Stichting.
Recruitemnt of Staff will be administered by the Executive branch of Afro-Dutch in consultation with the committee of Elders.
An acre of land has been provided by the local Port Loko community for the establishment of the Health Center.
To realise this project will require financing and cooperation from expatriates,donors and well wishers and sympathisers.We will solicit the help of donors and other relevant bodies to come on board and help us implement this project.A comprehensive budget will be available as soon as possible.
Project evaluation will be the responsibility of the Project Evaluator and consist of two different evaluative strategies – formative and summative.
Formative Evaluation
Primarily qualitative in nature, the formative evaluation will be conducted through interviews and open-ended questionnaires. Present and past patients will be asked about the day-to-day operation of the Center, the topics covered will be about the effectiveness of the center and questions to provide feedback for the ongoing improvement of the operation of the Project. The Project Evaluator will meet regularly with project staff to share findings from the formative evaluation effort. Periodic reports will be prepared that identify the major findings of the formative evaluation and how they have been used to improve Project operation.
Summative Evaluation
Primarily quantitative in nature, the summative evaluation will begin with the establishment of baseline data at the beginning of the Project (using a random of ex-patients to assess their experience and satisfaction ) and then be conducted at 6 month intervals with patients who have already visited the health facility).
Auditing. There will be an annual auditing of the project to ensure accountability which will be available to all for complete scrutiny.
