On September 1, 2023, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS) held a ceremony to celebrate the one-year anniversary of “Hospitals on Wheels”(HOWs) Project initiating its outreach tour to remote areas of Sierra Leone. H.E. Wang Qing, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the Republic of Sierra Leone, Dr. Jalikatu Mustapha, Deputy Minister of MOHS, Dr. Sartie Kenneh, Chief Medical Officer of MOHS, Mr. Prince Cole, Permanent Secretary of MOHS, Dr. Mathew Vandi,Director of Hospitals and Ambulance services, Dr. Yeabu Kargbo, Superintendent of HOWs Project, along with over 50 MOHS officials and doctors and nurses attended the ceremony.
Ambassador Wang Qing firstly congratulated that the HOWs project based on 4 mobile medical clinics donated by the Chinese Government has been truly built into a flagship project of MOHS,with the strong leadership of MOHS, hard work of the operation team and local health departments, and close collaboration between our two countries. H.E President Julius Maada Bio praised it as “one of the best initiatives Sierra Leone ever had”. The Mobile Clinics have traveled to 13 districts of Seirra Leone, served more than 37,000 people, detected a lot of severe patients and saved a number of patients’ life, especially for vulnerable babies, pregnant women, elderly people who are hard to reach quality health care. The Chinese Embassy will steadily stand together with the MOHS to support the sustaining and expanding of HOWs project.
Minister. Jalikatu Mustapha, CMOSartie Kenneh, PS Prince Cole, Dr. Mathew Vandi,Dr. Yeabu Kargbo all expressed great thanks to the Chinese Government for its firm support to Sierra Leone, especially for Sierra Leonean health system development and for the HOWs project which yielded great results by bringing free, high quality health care to people’s doorstep, detected many patients in their early stage of hypertension, diabetes and other diseases.The HOWs project is a phenomenal project which is warmly welcomed and asked for more visits by all districts and all people it has visited. With Chinese Embassy’s support, the MOHS will work even harder to expand the project to bring it to more Sierra Leonean in need.