Sierra Leone’s Minister of Health and Sanitation, Dr. Austin Demby has on the sidelines of the COP28 met with the leadership of the Global Care Hospital in Abu Dhabi, where he discussed possible areas of partnership to improve his country’s health sector.

In his presentation, Dr. Demby said that Sierra Leone was looking at building a nation around its people and the people’s welfare through investing in Human Capital to foster a healthy, educated and food secured public. He also noted that despite the challenges, they had made tremendous progress adding that Sierra Leone was renowned for being one of the success stories in reduction of maternal mortality rates within the African continent. The Minister stated they were looking for opportunities to train the health workforce in line with the country’s needs and having the right infrastructure to support healthcare providers.

“We are looking at health as a platform for the nation’s development such that everybody could be the best that they want to be with the infrastructure to support them. We have an opportunity to build the kind of healthcare system that we desire, so we are looking for partnerships, friendships, and opportunities for strong collaboration,” he said.

In his response, Chief Executive Officer of Global Care Hospital, Magdy Riad Fayek, mentioned that he was impressed with the presentations from the visiting delegation and the vision to transform Sierra Leone’s healthcare sector. He assured their willing to work with Sierra Leone and share their experience in different areas, while stating the need to develop a Memorandum of Understanding as a roadmap for collaboration that would cover teaching, training, research, exchanging programmes, remote learning, telemedicine to support remote areas and establishing facilities. He also added that both parties would benefit from the roadmap with lot of amazing ideas and very wise vision for healthcare.

Also in attendance were Deputy Foreign Minister, Madam Francess Piagie Alghali, Deputy Minister of Health II Madam Jalikatu Mustapha and Sierra Leone Ambassador to the UAE, Rashid Sesay.