After many months of hard work and with the support of our generous partners and staff in Sierra Leone, RHCI is thrilled to announce the opening of our second Birth Waiting Home in Gondama, Sierra Leone. Gondama is in the Tikonko Chiefdom and is home to over 8000 people; most living in remote villages. Located about 17 miles from the Mbao-mi Birth Waiting Home, the Gondama Birth Waiting Home will offer 10 beds to women in the final weeks of their pregnancies. Like Mbao-mi, women staying at the Gondama Home will receive prenatal care from trained healthcare workers, staff transportation to a healthcare facility at the time of delivery and a place for moms and babies to recover before returning home.
Gondama Birth Waiting Home
The journey to Gondama started in 2019 when RHCI received a grant from the U.S. Embassy in Sierra Leone and Friends of Sierra Leone (former Peace Corps Volunteers that served in Sierra Leone) to rebuild a 10 bed Birth Waiting Home in Gondama that had been left vacant since 2014 when MSF (Doctors Without Borders) left the area due to the Ebola epidemic.
During the reconstruction of the Gondama Home and the preparation to provide services in Gondama we realized there was an immediate need for health care services that couldn’t wait. In November 2019, RHCI set out to expand our mobile outreach clinic to include 4 additional villages in the Gondama catchment area. Today, our 8 total outreach clinics serve on average 385 women and children each month across the Tikonko Chiefdom.
Mobile Outreach Clinic
Gondama Birth Waiting Home
The Gondama Birth Waiting Home opened to patients on Monday, January 4, with COVID procedures in place to protect patients and staff. We started with 5 women being admitted and are currently at 9 patients receiving care. The women range in age from 18 to 30 years old and are students, housewives and farmers. But they all share the same wish to safely deliver a healthy baby and return to their families.
