Refurbishing the Health Centres

A network of 68 Heath Centres linked to the Kambia hospital in Sierra Leone provide vital front-line health facilities for local communities around Kambia. However, the physical structure of these Peripheral Health Units (PHUs) is poor and in some even the most basic equipment is absent. In 2019 The Kambia Appeal provided 200 delivery kits and 115 Blood Pressure monitors to the PHUs.

During a Kambia Appeal Trustee visit in 2019 it was clear that a number of PHUs badly need refurbishment. In some, patients, including expectant mothers, were being admitted under leaking roofs. We asked if we could help and the District Health Management Team (DMHT) prepared a prioritised list of 14 PHUs across the District which they believed to be in bad shape and needing some refurbishment, particularly roofs and ceilings.

The Kambia Appeal has now made a grant of £3,800 available for the refurbishment of one of the highest priority PHUs at Rokai (see image below). Work is underway and should be complete next month. We hope to be able to refurbish more PHUs over the next 2 years.

The Kambia Appeal continues to fund a mentoring project where the more experienced Maternal and Child Healthcare Assistants (MCHA) are mentoring the less experienced. This scheme has been shown to increase the knowledge and skills of the mentees, and has had the unexpected bonus of facilitating a ready made channel of communication with a known mentor when emergency advice is needed.