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BO, Sierra Leone, 24 November 2020  -  The Bo Government Hospital is a busy health facility which provides vital services to pregnant women on a daily basis. Serving over a million people, the facility is the only referral hospital in the southern province that caters to Pujehun, Bonthe and Moyamba districts.

Sierra Leone has one of the world’s highest MMRs. The 2015 SLDHS indicates that maternal deaths accounted for 36 per cent of all deaths of women aged 15–49 years. 

Bo Hospital shares a major challenge that affects the health sector throughout the country, which is the inadequate number of qualified and skilled health personnel, particularly skilled birth attendants who are critical to the prevention of maternal deaths. This is in addition to inadequate infrastructure and critical equipment.

 With financial support from UK aid through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO) Saving Lives in Sierra Leone Programme, UNFPA works with Doctors with Africa CUAMM to support the Bo Government Hospital in improving quality obstetric services to reduce maternal and newborn mortality. Such measures include the extension and refurbishment of the labour ward and the establishment of a dedicated maternal High Dependency Unit to address obstetric emergencies. 

The In-Charge of the hospital’s HDU, Christiana Elliot, explained that with the new monitors, oxygen concentrators and different equipment supplied by UNFPA to the High Dependency Unit in May 2020, there has been a decrease in the number of maternal deaths in the hospital. 

 At 27 years of age, Modupeh Cole who is a mother to three, is one of several new mothers to have benefited from UNFPA support to the Bo Government Hospital. On 28 September 2020, after a caesarean section, she delivered healthy twins in the maternal ward of the hospital, renovated by UNFPA.  

Modupeh said she remains thankful for the service she received at the hospital.   “It was a difficult situation for me because when I arrived at the hospital, I had no money. However, an emergency operation was carried out and I thankfully didn’t have to pay,” explained Modupeh joyfully.

Modupeh holds her twins girls with a midwife from Bo Government Hospital.© UNFPA Sierra Leone/2020/Suliaman Stephens

For more information, please contact:

Angelique Reid, UNFPA Sierra Leone, Communications Specialist

Tel: +232 78340044 - Email: areid@unfpa.org