After 67 days and the loss of the finest patriots in our country, President Koroma finally declares a state of emergency. As of July 23, the World Health Organization had confirmed more than 800 Ebola cases in the region, but it suspects there have been many unreported infections and there may be as many as 1,200 cases. Sierra Leone has been hardest hit, with approximately 525 cases. I am sorry Mr President but this is too little, too late...... I will say no more for now; let the governments praise singers and sycophantic choir have their moment of jubilation as I continue to mourn lost friends and family. We will demand answers later, when the anger and frustration subsides. ... But someone should be resigning by now!!! We have incompetence all around the President; A failed Ebola containment strategy. And yet, sycophantic supporters of the President accused of being unpatriotic for daring to ask why our loved ones are DYING. The only people playing politics with the lives of Sierra Leoneans is the incompetent Government with their misplaced priorities and propaganda. The President took his eye off the ball. The President in his typical arrogance and incompetence, ignored repeated warnings about the emergence of Ebola in West Africa. One concerned diaspora express his frustration: People are living in fear on daily basis and confined to their villages for fear that by going to a neighbouring village you will contact Ebola. Family members have refused to even travel out to nearest Banks to collect monies that their relatives in the diaspora have sent for them to provide food or medicine for the same fear. Confidence in this governments response to the Ebola crisis is at rock bottom. There seems to be an absence of leadership. And very little empathy for the victims of this unbearable tragedy. Indeed, all Sierra Leoneans must raise their voices and let the world know that we need more help. We are beyond politics now; from the moment it became clear that the government lacked an effective control & containment strategy coupled with an effective educational awareness plan it was self evident that accountability was lacking. Enough is enough. Our voices and displeasure must be heard. Sylvia Blyden confirmed on the 27th May 2014 (64 days ago) that President Koroma only knew about our peoples plight on Saturday the 24th May, 2014. Any caring man would have dropped an event as insignificant as the opening of a party office, to call an emergency meeting; going back to the drawing board to find an effective strategy to contain this disease. What did our president do? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Josephine Koroma spoke for the silent majority when she questioned our presidents leadership skills and judgement: How can a government be so heartless that it was left to the Special Executive Assistant to the incompetent Pres. Koroma to make such a shocking revelation on May 27th: “One of the Ebola patients who had to flee the Koindu Kissi Teng Community Health Center when Police last evening went to rescue and escort the besieged Medical team sent to FORCIBLY take Ebola patients to Kenema yesterday, has just died at her residence where she had fled with her relatives after everyone, including the Community Health Officer, simply abandoned the Health center leaving the patients to their own devices. Madam KUMBA SATTA was her name. Her corpse has been taken to her village named Korosur, located three miles from Koindu for burial.... In a crisis like this, provision of timely information aimed at combating the inevitable health menace among many other things, is an important function of a public health strategy. Hence, inadequate tracking techniques in the public health sector can lead to huge health insecurity, and hence endanger national security, etc. This was exactly what the government should have done. Instead president Koromas senior officials were preoccupied in making nuisances of themselves and clearly demonstrating that this government is recklessly sitting on a time bomb. As Josephine Koroma said: So, if you have a President who cannot control his own immediate staff at State House from abusing each other on social media and newspapers, and a President who cannot reprimand his Heath Minister for such incompetence or better still take responsibility for such catastrophic failure of leadership, then our suffering people can only brace up. Our nation cries for help. President Koroma, please tap into the abundant human resources at your disposal. Look beyond your family circle or ethnic or regional groupings. 67 days later, Ebola continues to have an impact on Sierra Leone in many ways. Economically speaking, many businesses have lost revenue because of the amount of deaths taking place due to ebola. Some hospitals cannot afford to have sanitized tools which becomes a problem when working with ebola patients because any bodily fluid passed from person to person can spread the disease. This makes it easy for healthcare and lab workers to catch the disease since they are handling ebola diagnosed fluids. Once someone is diagnosed, the disease kills quickly and there is no cure, most likely causing death of some doctors. What we need is to encourage international, national and local campaigns for public education. Public education campaigns are a series of efforts designed to inform an audience about a specific issue. The main purpose of a public education campaign is to change behaviour. To do that is a significant challenge, especially to entities such as Sierra Leone institutions that are often limited in funds and staffing. The Health Sector in Sierra Leone is in a state of flux. The civil war apparently destroyed over 70% of all health facilities. Services are yet to be fully restored to many parts of the country. There is no more important public service in Sierra Leone than health. You only have to go to a hospital to be reminded of its urgency and capacities to change lives. With the experience some of us have got here, we would be a tremendous help to our country. Health care is about preserving and enhancing life, about saving loved ones, about giving hope when people need it most. Just as it is vital to individuals, it is also vital to a society. Through affecting people’s abilities to lead their lives, it underpins government, the economy and all social structures. It is particularly important in Sierra Leone for two reasons. Firstly, our country’s population is considered the most vulnerable to ill health in the world, with particularly high infant child and maternity rates. Secondly, civil unrest is born of discontent and people continually justified their insurgency on the failure of successive governments to provide the country with adequate and just social services. Therefore, the health sector is crucial both in Sierra Leone’s positive development and the maintenance of peace. This was what a bereaved family told a relative some 60 days ago: Talking to one of my relatives yesterday he said Ebola is worst than the Civil war as it confines us to one place where as with the war, we were able to escape to Liberia or Guinea. Worst of all, I was informed also yesterday that it is spreading to Kenema with tendency of affecting other places as I predicted last. May the Lord all mighty contain it---AMEN. Blamas Finest, The Man Who Conjures Something Out Of Nothing!!!!
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 10:43:21 +0000
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