Sierra Leone’s Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation, Princess Dugba, has said the government has taken significant steps in promoting the implementation of Patient Safety in collaboration with its Partners since October 2020 when Sierra Leone joined other countries to commemorate the World Patient Safety Day to ensure that patients receive safe, effective, quality healthcare service delivery at the 5th Global Ministerial Summit that took place from 23rd to 24th February in Montreux, Switzerland.

The deputy minister said Sierra Leone under President Julius Maada Bio has a strong political and administrative commitment in executing mechanisms that are geared towards promoting patient safety initiatives to efficiently and effectively implement the Seven Frame Work of Global Patient Safety Action Plan for 2021-2030.

She added that the leadership of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation has developed a Patient Safety Policy and created a functional directorate of hospitals Inspection within the MOHs charged with the task of inspecting and monitoring all healthcare facilities in the country to ensure that the well-being of patients are protected.

The health ministry has also launched the National Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety Policy along with the Quality-of-Care Strategic Road map.

She disclosed that, Sierra Leone has made significant gains in reducing maternal mortality rate from 717 to 300/100,000 live-births, infant mortality rate from 75 to 28/1000 live-births, adolescent birth rate from 102 to 50/1000 live-births, and increased life expectancy from 54-58 years.

Madam Dugba informed the Summit that in a developing country like Sierra Leone, there is need for a resilient monitoring and evaluation Team to implement guidelines using multimodal strategies, training and monitoring feedback systems.