Speaking during the handing over ceremony at the Pujehun District Council hall at Pujehun district over the weekend, the Director of Primary Health Care in the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, Dr. Alie Wurie disclosed that in four months’ time, this is the second supply of free health care drugs in the district which shows how committed the Ministry is in ensuring that all the hospitals have drugs.
He commended the District Medical Officer and the DHMT including health workers in the Pujehun district for their swift response to the recent outbreak of Measles in the district in ensuring that it is contained with no major complications and did not spread to other children.
Dr. Alie Wurie said the government under the New Direction has come up with a system called transparency and accountability in the discharge of the free health care commodities.
He informed his audience that since the introduction of the free health care in 2010, drugs have been coming to the districts without the notice of stakeholders, adding that this time round they are calling on all stakeholders including Paramount Chiefs, the Police, the Military, Civil Society groups and youth groups and hand over the commodities to them for effective monitoring.
The Chairman, Committee on Health in Parliament, Hon. Moses Baimba Jorkie, said they are in the Pujehun district to hand over the free health care commodities to the people of the district for them to claim ownership of the commodities and ensure that the targeted groups benefit from it.
He said previously the free healthcare drugs were targeted for three categories of people, including pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under-five, but now it has been extended to the disadvantaged people and Ebola Survivors.
The Deputy Chairman, Pujehun District Council, Mohamed Niwo Mansaray described the second drugs distribution exercise as very unique in the Pujehun district as it was in a transparent manner and thanked President Julius Maada Bio and government for committing in promoting health care service delivery across the country.
He said they at Council are overwhelmed because they are responsible for executing developmental programmes in their communities, and maintained that the council is very much determined to ensure that the free health care drugs are monitored to an extent that the drugs reached the deserving people not only in the district but the chiefdoms and at village level.
Handing over of the free health care commodities formed part of the ceremony.
