WUNRN
Amnesty International
Direct Link to Full 43-Page Report:
The government has introduced some initiatives but much
remains to be done
6 September 2011 - More than a year after the launch of the Free Health
Care Initiative, pregnant women and girls in
Under the Initiative, all pregnant women and lactating mothers should receive
free treatment at government-run health facilities. However, a new Amnesty
International report, At a Crossroads:
“The health care system remains dysfunctional in many respects.” said Erwin
van der Borght, Amnesty International’s
“Government figures show that since the introduction of the Initiative, more
women are accessing antenatal care and delivering their babies in health
facilities. However, many women continue to pay for essential drugs, despite
the free health care policy, and women and girls living in poverty continue to
have limited access to essential care in pregnancy and childbirth.”
The government of
“A critical shortcoming within the healthcare system is the absence of any
effective monitoring and accountability systems, without which reforms cannot
succeed,” said Erwin van der Borght.
The existing processes are poorly resourced and focus on reviewing individual
facilities rather than on monitoring the obstacles women face in accessing
services. There are no effective complaint mechanisms available to women and
girls when their human rights are denied.
A 23-year old woman who had just given birth told Amnesty International:
“My baby was crying a lot and had a fever. Hospital had no drugs for him. Need
to pay money. They chased me away. I don’t know how to
complain.”
Monitoring and accountability are vital to the realization of the right to
health. An effective framework of monitoring and accountability serves as the
basis for promoting changes which allow women and girls to enjoy their right to
maternal health and give birth more safely.
“The government has taken some important steps to address these challenges. However,
deficiencies in the monitoring and accountability system allow poor practice
and mismanagement to go unchallenged, and have provided some people with
opportunities to exploit the system and plunder valuable medicines,” said Erwin
van der Borght.
Amnesty International welcomes the positive response received from the Ministry
of Health and Sanitation on sharing this report with them, but the planned
reforms must be translated into action.
Amnesty International is calling on the Sierra Leone government to strengthen
and establish systems of monitoring and accountability to ensure health care
interventions are accessible to women and girls and to guarantee their access
to effective remedies for violations of their human rights.