The Strengthening COVID Response and Essential Health Services Project was formed due to the urgency to embrace the GoSL’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak in Sierra Leone, and also bearing in mind the uncertainty around future epidemiological path globally. It’s a $10 million project funded by the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) and comprises the following components: Component 1: Health Emergency Response; Component 2: Health System Strengthening; and Component 3: Project Management.
The project aimed to prevent, detect and respond to the threat posed by COVID-19 and strengthen essential health services and Sierra Leone’s health system. As numerous shocks over the past decade had taken a toll on Sierra Leone’s development trajectory, the project was also geared towards improving: clinical services and outbreak containment; image and diagnostic capacity; and strengthen referral & feedback mechanism in ten (10) secondary hospitals and their related Peripheral Health Units (PIUs) and regional hospitals in Sierra Leone. During the pandemic, the goal was primarily to succeed in the health, economic and social fights against the COVID-19 outbreak and then return the country to the path of growth needed to ensure the delivery of the country’s Medium-Term National Development Plan and the President’s Human Capital Development Portfolio.
Against this background, the Strengthening COVID Response and Essential Health Services Project sub-component consisted of civil works, acquisition of equipment and capacity building. The civil works aspect comprised: the Construction, refurbishing/renovating existing Infrastructure to create functional COVID-19 Treatment Centres and COVID-19 Community Care Centres in the ten (10) targeted Districts’ Health Centres for the provision of optimal medical care and treatment at Covid-19 an isolation unit; and to minimize risks of infection for patients and health personnel. These centres which are largely in their completion stages are in: Magburaka, Kabala, Makeni, Port Loko, Bonthe Municipal, Bo, Moyamba, Kono, Panguma, and Kenema.
With such facilities in place, suspected cases of COVID-19 and other critical ailment and diseases reported, will now be investigated, diagnosed and treated in those centres as per approved protocols of the Health Ministry and World Health Organization.
Below are pictorial evidence of the facilities .
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