—RHCI staff in Tikonko pictured with visiting board member Ajayi Nicol in December 2021—
This past year, the 4 key program areas in Sierra Leone have been very active and are making a big difference in the lives of families. As the newly established program director from afar, I would like to share important highlights from RHCI’s operations in the rural Tikonko Chiefdom. Despite the on-going COVID pandemic, we are proud to share these accomplishments.
RHCI’s Birth Waiting Home program expanded in January 2021 with the opening of the 9 bed Gondama Birth Waiting Home. Since then, two additional beds have been added, to allow space for up to 11 pregnant or post-partum women to stay there. By road, Gondama is located about 18 miles from Tikonko. The Gondama Birth Waiting Home serves the Gondama Community Health Center (CHC) catchment area, including many remote villages. As a collaboration with the Gondama CHC, the home is staffed by nurses and a midwife from Gondama, with RHCI providing stipends.
The Mbao-mi Mothers’ Home in Tikonko continues to serve primarily women in the Tikonko CHC catchment area. Very sadly, a woman who had stayed at Mbao-mi in December, died after childbirth at the Bo Government Maternity Hospital, the first maternal death for RHCI out of over 700 women who have stayed at the Birth Waiting Homes. We are looking for ways to prevent this from happening in the future and it makes us more determined than ever to continue our work and expand it.
The Mobile Outreach Clinics (formerly called Motorbike Clinics) to 8 villages continued to be a very important partnership with the staff at the local CHC’s. With 350 to 400 women and children attending each month, these clinics are critical to access of care for illnesses such as malaria and pneumonia as well as prenatal care and immunizations. We doubled our support for the remote Kassama and Sembehun Tarbema Peripheral Health Units, after discovering the extreme shortages of medications and supplies at these two locations.
The Children’s Health and Malnutrition Program, which mostly operates through the mobile outreach clinics, expanded. Children who were critically ill were transported to the Bo Government Hospital or Bo Children’s Hospital for life-saving care. We continue to provide RUTF (Plumpynut and Pikinmix) to the children identified by the nutritionist as moderately to severely malnourished (MAM and SAM). We are assessing the vaccination program to determine how RHCI can reduce barriers to childhood vaccines.
The Food Security and Agriculture Program expanded with the assistance of RHCI volunteer Cal Dauner who lived and worked in Tikonko from December through May. Developing a large compost site and introducing modern farming techniques with the help of an expert team back in MN, Cal and the RHCI staff facilitated clearing of RHCI’s land, and growing of a bumper crop of groundnuts and cowpeas. Many of the women staying at the Mbao-mi Mothers’ Home benefited from hands-on agriculture training while there.
What does 2022 have in store? Through the program evaluation in progress, we have identified areas where improvement is needed. We will work closely with our in-country staff and stakeholders to make the changes. We are also hopeful we can expand our health care services to more women and older children. Further training of Community Health workers in the area of child malnutrition is planned.
We are especially grateful to our in-country director and all of the full time and part-time staff who carry out these programs. They are dedicated to helping their fellow citizens and improving the lives of others. They indeed are the heart and soul of RHCI and its work in the Tikonko Chiefdom.