To be honest, its hard to say what my job is at the moment. The grand description may be an extra skilled pair of hands in this frenzied time before the Free Health Care (FHC) initiative is launched on Independence Day (27th April). In the last 2 weeks I’ve got to do some fun things…
Last Friday (9th April) I helped out with a big workshop for all the people involved in launching Free Health Care in the Districts, ie the District teams, including local councillors. By the end of the day, every team from all 13 Districts had a costed action plan. The plans to get out the key messages were very similar and included town parades, radio jingles and phone-ins and going around the villages with a loud hailer!
On Monday I helped to write two documents. One was a briefing to the President about an aspect of the Strengthening District Health Services Project (SDHS, every health system loves its aconymns, see below!!) which is focusing on 5 districts, with an emphasis on child and maternal health (infrastructure/buildings and training & development and health systems). This 5 year project is partnership funded between ADB (African Development Bank), UNFPA (The UN population fund) and GoSL (The Govt of Sierra Leone) till 2011. My boss, Dr Seisay, is the overall project sponsor. Then on Tuesday I went to Makeni to help with a financial and planning 4 day workshop for all of the districts as part of the same SDHSprogramme. I summarised the first 2 days and then fed back to the 80 or so delegates. I also got to know the UNFPA guys and intend to get far more involved with this programme to support my boss. So the job is shaping up (kind of!!) and I have some ideas about strengthening management which I’ll start to develop soon.
A word about Makeni, which is the 3rd largest town in SL and 150 miles ‘up country’ but with one of the few good roads in the country linking it to the capital. The conference and accommodation was in Hotel Wusum (check it out on the internet) a rather nice hotel, albeit a bit run down. But my room had aircon, a fridge and hot water! First time in a month that I slept with a sheet over me! Met some Welsh road builders in the bar! It was odd to see this hotel in a small rural town. I managed to meet up with Ann, a VSO who is a midwife working in Makeni and got some of the low down on the realities of hospital life here. Check out her blog and come to this blog to see photos of the funny statues in the hotel!!
Also Makeni is home to 'Gara' a type of tie dyed and waxed fabric, see the women making gara, who are relatives of Peter, Dr S's driver (I went to meet Peter's mum, chief gara maker!)
Last Friday (9th April) I helped out with a big workshop for all the people involved in launching Free Health Care in the Districts, ie the District teams, including local councillors. By the end of the day, every team from all 13 Districts had a costed action plan. The plans to get out the key messages were very similar and included town parades, radio jingles and phone-ins and going around the villages with a loud hailer!
On Monday I helped to write two documents. One was a briefing to the President about an aspect of the Strengthening District Health Services Project (SDHS, every health system loves its aconymns, see below!!) which is focusing on 5 districts, with an emphasis on child and maternal health (infrastructure/buildings and training & development and health systems). This 5 year project is partnership funded between ADB (African Development Bank), UNFPA (The UN population fund) and GoSL (The Govt of Sierra Leone) till 2011. My boss, Dr Seisay, is the overall project sponsor. Then on Tuesday I went to Makeni to help with a financial and planning 4 day workshop for all of the districts as part of the same SDHSprogramme. I summarised the first 2 days and then fed back to the 80 or so delegates. I also got to know the UNFPA guys and intend to get far more involved with this programme to support my boss. So the job is shaping up (kind of!!) and I have some ideas about strengthening management which I’ll start to develop soon.
A word about Makeni, which is the 3rd largest town in SL and 150 miles ‘up country’ but with one of the few good roads in the country linking it to the capital. The conference and accommodation was in Hotel Wusum (check it out on the internet) a rather nice hotel, albeit a bit run down. But my room had aircon, a fridge and hot water! First time in a month that I slept with a sheet over me! Met some Welsh road builders in the bar! It was odd to see this hotel in a small rural town. I managed to meet up with Ann, a VSO who is a midwife working in Makeni and got some of the low down on the realities of hospital life here. Check out her blog and come to this blog to see photos of the funny statues in the hotel!!
Also Makeni is home to 'Gara' a type of tie dyed and waxed fabric, see the women making gara, who are relatives of Peter, Dr S's driver (I went to meet Peter's mum, chief gara maker!)
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