President Bio yesterday 17th October, 2019 formally opened the magnificent state-of-the-art King Harman Road Hospital in west of Freetown where in his keynote address he recalling that in his maiden address to Parliament in 2018 after becoming the country’s head of state, he stated that the objective of his New Direction Government is to transform a grossly under-resourced, under-funded, poorly managed health system into a more efficient, reliable, cost effective, affordable and sustainable one. He stressed in particular the need to increase health service to mothers, children and the elderly everywhere in the country. President Bio said the opening of the King Harman Road hospital is another milestone along that journey.

Addressing a large crowd of public officials, international development partners and the general public, the President maintained that he was gratified to launch the facility as a center of excellence for delivery of health service, adding that his government has made significant contributions to improving the health sector including increasing the workforce by 4, 000; increasing the national budget for health from 8.9% to 11.6%; introduction of the National Emergency Medical Service in all districts, with 18, 000 referrals made to date.

His government has also allocated funds for a national diagnostic and treatment center.

Tremendous progress he said has been made to meet the needs of citizens for affordable quality health care services, observing that much still remains to be done as people continue to die from curable diseases.

President Bio praised the role of our international development partners, in particular DfID for providing the funding.

The goal of the health sector he said should be to provide safe, universal health coverage, adding that it is the responsibility of MoHS to strengthen the system to prevent harm and injury due treatment and care. “Preventable harm and error must be avoided,” President Bio appealed to health practitioners.

He stated that it is MoHS’s role to ensure that our women and children have access to care by well qualified personnel everywhere by improving the status of health care facilities.

The new 68-bed King Harman Road hospital which he said started in the 1980s as a satellite hospital complementing Connaught, PCMH, and Ola During and will provide a broad range of secondary level in-patient and out-patient care to a community of nearly 30, 000 including 3, 600 women of reproductive age to reduce maternal and child mortality through providing access to high quality care obstetrics, genecology, x-ray and ultrasound services from staff that have the required training.

He called on the hospital management to ensure tha patient centered care is the hallmark of services that will redundant the existence of quacks.
Presoident Bio called on healthcare givers to do their work with a high level of professionalism, help the sick and abstain from injury and harm and maintain the facility to remain clean and sanitary that will encourage the people to seek their services.

He called on the health authorities to ensure that standards are maintained and adhered to.

He called on the people to discourage self treatment, quack peddlers and traditional birth attendants, noting that because of successful interventions by government, partners and MoHS, both maternal and child mortality figures have improved encouragingly 156 infant deaths for every 1000 births, down to 94 and 39 maternal deaths per 1000 live births, down to 20. He congratulated the health sector for the improvements.

On that note, President Bio declared the facility which will also offer free health care service to school children in the community.